THE 

ROMANTIC  WOMAN 


NEW  BORZOI  NOVELS 
SPRING,  1920 

PETER  JAMESON 

By  Gilbert  Frankau 

THE   ROLLING  STONE 

By  C.  A.  Dmvson-Scott 

THE  CROSS  PULL 

By  Hal  G.  Evarts 

DELIVERANCE 

By  E.  L.  Grant  Watson 

THE  SECRET  BATTLE 

By  A.  P.  Herbert 

THE  TALLEYRAND  MAXIM 
By  J.  S.  Fletcher 

WHERE   ANGELS   FEAR  TO  TREAD 

By  E.  M.  Forster 


THE 
ROMANTIC  WOMAN 


BY 

MARY  BORDEN 


NEW  YORK 

ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF 

1920 


PUBLISHED,  1920,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 

The  Only  Authorized  American  Edition 


Firtt  and  second  printings  in  advance 
of  publication 

Published   March.    1920 


PRINTED    IN    THK    UNITED    8TATIS    0»   AMIBICA 


PART  ONE 


2134198 


CHAPTER  ONE 

IT  was  in  the  middle  of  dinner  at  Saracens  on  the 
tenth  of  September  two  years  ago.  They  were  on 
their  way  home,  the  four  Americans,  and  in  two 
separate  couples  had  descended  on  us,  all  dreadfully 
unaware  of  the  surprise  in  store  for  them,  the  surprise 
of  finding  each  other.  Ruffles  had  been  safely  staring 
at  Phyllis  and  Louise  for  some  moments  through  the 
branching  candelabra.  He  ended  his  scrutiny  by  wickedly 
rolling  his  eyes  in  my  direction  and  saying  with  more 
than  usual  insolence : 

"  How  well  you  imitate  us." 

"  And  how  hard  we  try,"  I  murmured,  saying  with 
fatal  promptitude  what  was  bitterly  in  my  mind. 

"  What's  that?  "  growled  Jim. 

"  Ruffles  is  accusing  us  of  imitating  his  own,  that  is, 
their  own  decadence " 

"  Oh,  I  say !  "  put  in  Ruffles  deprecatingly,  cocking  an 
eyebrow. 

Jim  glared.  I  expected  him  to  defend  his  nation,  but 
he  was  unlike  himself  that  night. 

"  Only  the  women,"  he  brought  out  after  a  pause  with 
defiant  brutality,  daring  me  to  snub  him  for  his  bad  taste 
in  criticizing  his  wife. 

"  Yes,  I  meant  the  women." 

And  then  they  fixed  each  other  with  an  animosity  that 
seemed  to  suggest  the  stirring  of  dangerous  depths.  I 


8  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

dropped  my  eyes  to  avoid  the  sight  of  Jim's  passionate 
flush,  and  when  I  looked  up  again  after  an  uncomfortable 
silence  I  was  appalled. 

I  remember  quite  distinctly  the  definite  sensation  con- 
veyed by  the  almost  audible  click  in  my  brain,  as  I 
looked  up  from  my  plate  and  as,  in  that  instant,  all  the 
broken  images  that  made  up  for  me  the  impression  of 
the  dinner  table,  slid  smoothly  together  into  a  new  pat- 
tern. The  change  was  like  the  change  worked  by  the 
turning  of  a  kaleidoscope,  and  the  people  who  came  within 
range  looked  as  peculiar  as  though  I  myself  had  stood 
on  my  head.  It  was  not  that  I  actually  became  clair- 
voyant in  the  middle  of  the  dinner,  but  that  exaggeration 
is  as  near  as  I  can  get  to  a  truthful  statement  of  the 
case.  It  may  have  been  a  particularly  piercing  gasp  of 
enthusiasm  from  Louise  that  produced  the  phenomenon ; 
certainly  her  shriek  of  delight  as  she  ogled  Lord  Britton 
was  startling  enough  upon  strained  nerves,  to  account  for 
anything,  but  then  I  hadn't  realized  that  my  nerves  were 
strained.  However  that  may  be,  and  whatever  the  cause 
of  it,  they  all  changed  for  me  in  an  instant,  appeared 
strangely  significant,  and  tremendously  queer,  as  queer 
as  ghosts  and  as  significant  as  immortals,  angels  or  devils. 
They  became  suddenly  immortal  souls  visible  to  the  eye, 
and  hopelessly  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  the  endless 
past  and  the  more  endless  future.  Their  faces  and  bodies, 
as  much  of  their  bodies  as  was  visible  above  the  table- 
cloth, looked  strange,  but  not  like  the  faces  of  strangers, 
for,  at  once,  that  was  the  point  of  it,  I  knew  them 
phenomenally,  understood  them  deeply.  It  was  as  though 
all  my  life  I  had  been  dealing  with  the  dried  remains 
of  these  people,  as  though  I  had  been  living  with  a  set 
of  mummies,  the  remains  of  human  beings  I  had  known 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  9 

centuries  before,  and  as  if  now  we  had  suddenly  been 
transported  back  to  the  time  when  they  were  alive. 

The  moment  had  a  sinister  quality,  as  though  it  had 
been  blown  upon  by  the  breath  of  very  old  decayed 
things,  immemorial,  transcendent  villainies  and  disappoint- 
ments. It  was  like  a  hard  drop  of  eternity,  distilled 
for  me  to  behold  in  completeness,  out  of  the  vague  flood 
of  time.  It  was  complete  as  a  gigantic  and  perfect 
crystal  in  which  they  were  all  petrified,  and  I  remem- 
ber pitying  them ;  for  what  human  figures  could  appear 
to  advantage  against  the  visible  drop-curtain  of  eternity? 

The  sight  of  my  plate  formed  the  jumping-off  place  for 
my  unnatural  vision  of  them.  I  remember  the  very 
ordinary  look  of  it,  the  bit  of  discoloured  and  decayed 
partridge,  an  ugly  black  part  of  the  wing,  lying  in  a 
little  pool  of  gravy  with  a  shred  of  lettuce  mangled 
by  my  fork;  and  I  remember  the  scarlet  cuff  of  the 
footman's  coat  as  it  came  between  my  eyes  and  the  white 
cloth  while  he  removed  the  plate,  good  scarlet  cloth 
woven  on  a  Scotch  loom,  sold  for  three  and  six  a  yard, 
and  worn  by  a  well-trained  arm;  and  then  I  looked 
down  the  table  and  saw  Binky  as  I  had  never  seen  him 
before.  I  saw  Binky  with  his  fine,  lined  countenance 
for  the  first  time  visibly  tinged  with  depravity.  His 
eyelids  drooped,  and  I  remembered  the  eyelids  of  the 
beautiful  Duke  who  had  died  so  inopportunely  as  far 
as  Binky's  love  affair  was  concerned,  and  I  remembered 
the  eyelids  of  a  certain  actor  who  had  once  played  the 
part  of  the  mad  King  Charles  of  France.  He,  the 
actor,  had  plastered  his  eyelids  with  white  paste  —  it 
was  a  clever  make-up.  I  had  never  noticed  the  resem- 
blance before.  Binky  had  always  looked  to  me  more 
or  less  as  he  did  at  the  beginning  when  he  came  forward 


io  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN, 

to  dazzle  me  with  that  vivid  bright  expression  of  his, 
just  coloured  with  sarcasm  and  apology  as  though  he 
were  constantly  saying :  "  I  know  the  world  is  supposed 
to  be  a  beastly  place,  and  I've  no  business  to  be  happy, 
but  everything  is  so  awfully  jolly,  you  know."  He  had 
always  seemed  to  me  like  that,  happy  and  boyish,  in 
spite  of  his  grey  hair  and  hollow  cheeks.  I  saw  him 
now  growing  old,  beautifully  and  hopelessly  aged,  in- 
finitely aged.  I  saw  the  extreme  sophistication  of  all 
his  ancestors,  and  the  weariness  of  all  his  forests,  and 
the  corruption  of  his  mouldering  houses  waiting  to  fall 
on  him  and  do  away  with  his  energy  and  his  joy,  and 
make  him  into  just  such  another  as  his  father  or  his 
father's  brother.  I  saw  him,  too,  gently  writhing  in 
agony  under  his  perfect  raillery,  and  I  knew  that  he 
was  cursing  still  the  accident  that  had  made  him  give 
up  that  creature  beside  him.  For  there  actually  was 
Phyllis  sitting  beside  him,  quite  perfectly  lovely,  and 
with  her  eyes  and  teeth  softly  sparkling,  and  her  mar- 
vellous hair  an  aureole  of  fairness  about  her  slender 
face.  She  was  dimpling  and  laughing  in  spite  of  her 
acute  regret,  her  enormous  envy,  and  I  recognized  her 
then  at  last  in  a  flash  as  the  most  immortal  thing  on 
earth,  a  perfect  coquette;  and  I  hated  her,  for  I  saw 
that  she  was  fond  of  killing  people  and  tormenting  them, 
and  I  remembered  what  Aunt  Cora  had  said  to  me  in 
her  grim  way  about  American  women.  What  was 
Phyllis  doing  there,  I  asked  myself,  sitting  next  to 
Binky,  who  would  have  been  so  glad  to  have  let  her 
devour  him,  sitting  merrily  next  to  Binky,  and  opposite 
Claire  Hobbes?  Phyllis  I  had  loved,  and  Claire  I  had 
disliked  and  feared  for  years  —  for  just  as  many  years 
as  I  had  wanted  Binky,  but  after  all  Claire  had  played 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  n 

the  game  as  she  saw  it  with  fairness,  and  she  had  a 
right  to  despise  Phyllis.  She  was  honest  in  her  profanity, 
at  any  rate,  and  daring.  She  sat  as  cold  and  still 
as  an  idol,  swearing  silently  to  herself.  I  knew  she 
was  swearing  and  sneering  at  them  both  out  of  her  long 
curious  eyes  that  compelled  my  reluctant  admiration. 
Nothing  could  have  looked  more  perfectly  finished  than 
Phyllis,  but  she  didn't  fool  Claire.  She  was  a  treasure, 
a  jewel;  she  would  fetch  almost  any  price  in  a  shop 
that  dealt  in  rare  products  —  and  yet  Claire  knew,  and 
Ruffles  knew,  what  she  was.  They  saw  through  her,  they 
saw  through  Louise,  they  saw  through  us  all.  We  never 
could  fool  them. 

But  Binky  had  fooled  me,  all  unconsciously  and  inno- 
cently I  knew,  but  nevertheless  truly  he  had  fooled 
me.  I  had  been  finding  it  out  bit  by  bit  for  years. 
When  a  man's  mother  and  sisters  and  grandfathers 
and  grandmothers  and  great-grandfathers  and  great- 
grandmothers  have  all  had  the  habit  of  being  painted 
by  great  artists,  he  acquires  a  flippant  familiarity 
with  such  artists.  How  was  I  to  know,  coming  straight 
out  of  the  wilderness,  that  when  Binky  talked  so  easily 
and  gaily  of  great  men  and  great  treasures,  men  and 
things  we  regard  with  awe  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  that  his  polish  was  no  evidence  whatever  of 
a  fine  intellect,  but  just  the  result  of  rolling  about  in  a 
world  of  treasures,  and  of  rubbing  up  against  a 
rich  background  ?  How  was  I  to  know  that  his  excellent 
taste  was  not  his  own,  that  he  really  had  done  his  best 
to  spoil  it?  His  household  gods  had  been  too  much  for 
him ;  they  had  kept  him  by  force  in  the  frame  that  had 
been  meant  for  him,  and  there  he  was  high  up  on  the 
wall  for  plain  people  to  gape  at.  Their  gaping  angered 


12  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

me.  What  right  had  Americans  to  gape?  Clergymen 
ought  to  be  good  —  and  Americans  ought  to  be  demo- 
cratic. It  is  a  question  of  living  up  to  one's  profession 
of  faith.  Binky  and  Claire  and  Ruffles,  and  even  dear 
Molly  Tripp,  were  gazing  down  their  English  noses  at 
us,  because  they  knew  we  were  faithless.  Phyllis  and 
Louise  were  obvious,  and  was  I  not  to  be  bulked  with 
them,  for  had  I  not  married  Binky?  Had  I  not  bought 
him?  Of  us  all,  Pat  alone  was  above  and  beyond  their 
scorn.  Jim  was  obscure.  He  puzzled  them,  but  Pat  they 
accepted  good-humouredly.  Pat,  who  had  been  a 
"  Mick "  in  the  streets  of  Iroquois,  he  was  their  peer, 
and  as  he  sat  there  waving  vague  gestures  towards  them 
with  his  huge  hands,  and  rumbling  on  with  his  huge 
voice,  he  was  as  removed  from  them  all  as  a  bear  too  well 
fed  and  comfortable  to  bother  about  knocking  any  one 
down. 

I  became  suddenly  weary  with  the  problem  of  birth 
and  inheritance,  of  races  and  the  origins  of  societies. 
I  was  bewildered  by  the  vision  of  our  Huguenot,  and 
Dutch,  and  Irish,  and  German  forefathers.  They  seemed 
to  crowd  up  behind  my  compatriots  grimacing  and  chat- 
tering to  drown  out  the  sound  of  their  American  voices. 
If  Louise  and  Phyllis  would  only  keep  still  and  let  us 
hear  what  these  ghosts  had  to  say. 

I  had  belonged  to  them.  I  had  given  them  up  ten 
years  before,  and  had  taken  the  others  on,  but  they 
hadn't  taken  me  on.  Further,  the  American  lot  had 
grown  accustomed  to  think  of  me  as  one  of  the  English. 
I  perceived  that  I  existed  nowhere,  and  belonged  to 
nobody. 

Whether  the  dreadful  event  that  was  approaching 
had  actually  cast  its  shadow  on  that  moment  I  don't 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  13 

know.  I  felt  no  menace  of  any  particular  horror;  it 
was  merely  the  fear  of  knowledge,  the  shock  of  so  much 
recognition,  that  made  me  go  white  enough  to  attract 
Jim's  notice.  His  was  the  last  face  to  be  crowded  into 
that  panorama,  for  he  sat  at  my  right,  and  I  came  to 
it  hoping  to  find  him  at  least  looking  like  the  same 
intelligent  dissipated  cherub,  but  he  was  no  more  com- 
fortable to  the  eye  than  any  of  them.  The  beauty  was 
there  still,  and  the  innocence,  but  it  was  a  dreadful 
innocence,  dreadful  and  desperate,  and  his  flushed  face 
seemed  to  be  set  in  a  last  final  effort  to  remember  all 
those  things  which  we  together  and  apart  had  clung  to 
—  and  which  had  kept  us  clear  of  degradation. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked  in  his  suppressed 
nasal  tone. 

"Why?  — what?" 

"  You  look  so  funny,  a  queer  colour,  whitish." 

He  leaned  forward  and  stared,  deeply,  shyly,  solici- 
tous, and  I  looked  back  at  him,  not  shyly,  for  I  was 
too  tremendously  excited  to  feel  shy.  I  wanted  to  know 
once  and  for  all  whether  it  was  true,  or  whether  he 
too  had  fooled  me.  His  very  deep  blue  eyes  are  like 
the  eyes  of  a  fierce  intelligent  angel,  and  he  has  a  ridicu- 
lous curly  mouth,  a  beautiful  cupid's  bow  mouth  that 
would  fit  a  girl  to  perfection.  I  took  in  again  the  contra- 
dictions of  his  face  with  its  fine,  impressive  brow  and 
its  round,  chubby  cheeks,  and  I  realized  that  I  loved 
him  terribly,  as  a  ghost  might  love  a  man  utterly  out 
of  reach.  He  had  occupied  my  mind  more  persistently 
and  for  a  longer  number  of  years  than  any  one  on  earth, 
except  perhaps  my  father  —  and  it  seemed  tremendously 
important  that  I  should  know  absolutely  that  I  had  not 
been  thinking  about  him  inaccurately  and  romantically. 


14  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

It  was  necessary  for  my  sanity  and  for  the  composure 
of  my  old  age  that  I  should  know  that  when  I  suffered 
with  his  suffering  I  was  right  about  it,  not  imagining  a 
thing  which"  did  not  exist,  as  I  had  done  with  Binky  and 
so  many  others. 

""  What  is  it?  "  he  urged  again. 

"  I  don't  know,"  I  said.  '*  It  seems  queer  —  your  all 
being  here  together.  I  didn't  plan  it.  It  happened. 
Phyllis  invited  herself,  and  so  did  Louise."  '••- 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  don't  want  us  ?  "  He 
smiled  dimly. 

"  No.  I  don't  mean  that,  not  so  long  as  you  don't  cut 
each  other's  throats." 

He  stared,  and  then  decided,  too  late,  to  laugh. 

"  Oh  rats  —  that's  all  too  far  off.  Pat  is  perfectly 
tame  now  —  perfectly  tame.  He  eats  out  of  her  hand." 

"Ah  —  but  it's  not  Pat  I'm  afraid  of." 

"  Who,  then  ?  "  He  leaned  back,  digging  his  round  chin 
into  his  collar. 

"  At  least,  not  Pat  especially,  but  all  of  you  together." 

"Don't  you  think  we  know  how  to  behave?"  He 
smiled. 

"  My  dear  Jim !  It's  not  that.  You  know  what  I 
mean." 

I  was  saying  stupid  things,  because  I  wanted  to  know. 
I  wanted  so  terribly  to  know  that  I  w«s  not  mistaken 
about  Louise's  effect  on  him. 

"  You  know  what  I  mean,"  I  repeated. 

And  Louise's  voice  shrilled  down  the  table.  "  What 
is  a  point  to  point?  You  English  have  such  an  extraor- 
dinary way  of  talking.  A  horse  race?  Why  a  point 
to  point  ?  What  points  do  you  mean  ?  "  We  both  hung 
there,  suspended,  as  though  that  voice  were  a  nail  that 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN'  15 

had  nailed  us  awkwardly,  helplessly,  flapping  against  a 
wall  —  a  blank  wall. 

But  Jim  answered  me,  as  he  sat  up  suddenly,  reaching 
for  a  glass. 

"  Well  then,  I  don't,  and  what's  more  I  don't  want 
to."  He  stared  at  me  dimly,  but  as  he  stared  his;  look 
cleared  and  hardened.  There  was  no  appeal  in  his  eyes. 
They  shut  me  out  completely.  If  I  thought  that  he 
was  gokig  to  give  himself  or  Louise  away,  there  in  Binky's 
house,  or  anywhere  else,  I  was  mistaken.  He  had  brought 
Louise  because  she  wanted  to  come.  Why  she  wanted  to 
come,  he  chose  to  consider  none  of  his  business.  He 
would  get  through  it  somehow,  and  he  did  not  want 
me  to  know.  He  would  be  ashamed  if  he  thought  I 
kn^w.  So  much  I  read  with  relief  in  his  face,  his 
obscure  passionate  face;  and  in  looking  at  his  face  I 
realized  that  my  curious  moment  had  passed. 

I  was  quite  normal  once  more,  quite  as  normal  and 
as  lonely  as  ever.  And  then  Louise  shrieked  again,  and 
Jim  flushed  a  darker  crimson  and  volently  drained  his 
glass  of  champagne.  I  had  kept  no  count  of  his  glasses 
of  champagne.  His  drinking  didn't  impress  me  at  the 
time  as  unusual. 

I  go  back  to  that  moment  of  that  night  because  if 
I  hadn't  had  it,  with  them  all  fixed  in  it,  so  clearly,  I 
should  never  have  been  able  to  understand  anything  in 
its  relation  to  anything  else  sufficiently  to  attempt  to 
write  about  it.  And  I  want  to  write  because,  now  it's 
all  over,  and. Jim  has  disappeared  for  ever,  and  the 
others  have  gone  off  to  the  war,  Binky  and  Ruffles,  and 
all  the  other  men  in  the  world  —  writing  this  gives  me 
something  to  do. 

Moreover,   in  thinking  over  my  life  I  keep  coming 


1 6  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

back  to  that  moment  as  to  a  sort  of  touchstone.  It's 
not  only  that  I  see  now  how  everything  even  from  the 
beginning,  when  I  was  a  child  in  Iroquois,  led  up  to 
that  horrible  evening,  but  that  the  vision  I  had  at  dinner 
just  before  the  final  scene  made  me  a  different  person,  a 
wiser  person  —  just  as  truly  as  the  war  has  made  me  a 
quieter  person. 

The  war  has  made  us  friends,  Binky  and  me.  I  am 
ashamed  to  say  it,  but  there  it  is.  I  am  ashamed  of 
being  in  debt  to  the  greatest  horror  of  all  time  for  my 
own  peace  of  mind.  I  am  ashamed  to  admit  that  the 
war  has  done  something  good  for  us,  because  that  proves 
just  how  dreadfully  deep  we  were  in  failure.  It's  an 
awful  thing  to  think  that  the  tragedy  of  millions  has 
been  a  blessing  to  me,  but  it  is  true.  It  has  reduced  my 
life  to  the  simplest  terms,  it  has  destroyed  all  fictitious 
values  and  left  me  with  a  very  few  simple  ones.  I  love 
my  children,  and  I  like  Binky,  and  I  am  glad  the  war 
has  saved  him.  He  is  happy  now  in  the  face  of  all 
those  horrors.  When  I  say  he  is  happy  I  mean  that  his 
soul  is  enjoying  the  acute  discomfort  of  his  body  and 
the  dislocation  of  his  nerves,  and  the  unviolability  of 
his  mind  in  a  violated  world;  I  mean  that  his  soul  is 
quiet  in  the  midst  of  the  shuddering  convulsions  of  the 
universe.  It's  a  splendid  thing  for  a  man  to  keep  his 
will  rigid  against  the  raving  lunacies  let  loose  by  the 
noise  of  cannon  and  the  sight  of  grotesque  agonies. 
Binky,  of  course,  doesn't  realize  that  he  is  splendid. 
He  talks  of  doing  his  job.  That  is  the  most  English 
thing  I  know,  that  terse  denial  of  heroism  and  splendid 
suffering.  I  sit  at  home  thinking  about  it. 

I  believe  my  cousins-in-law  are  full  of  romance  and 
energy.  Clementine  is  on  a  barge  somewhere  in  a 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  17 

Flemish  mud-puddle  making  coffee  for  the  Belgians,  and 
Monica  is  nursing  at  Le  Touquet;  but  I  do  nothing.  I 
am  too  old  to  delight  in  calamity.  I  have  entered  into 
middle  age,  and  there  seems  to  be  nothing  for  a  decent 
unprofessional  woman  to  do  but  perpetuate  the  race  and 
meditate  over  her  knitting.  And  so,  as  I've  given  Binky 
an  heir  long  ago,  two  of  them  in  fact,  I  am  meditating. 
I  am  meditating  upon  the  questions  of  race  personality, 
of  inheritance ;  I  am  meditating  on  the  vices  and  virtues 
of  mongrels  and  thoroughbreds,  of  civilized  people  and 
uncivilized  people,  and  upon  the  relative  beauties  of 
wildernesses  and  gardens. 

I  am  thinking  of  how  I  have  misunderstood  Binky, 
and  of  how  he  must  have  misunderstood  me.  It  has 
taken  centuries  of  discipline  to  turn  out  Binky,  and  it 
is  no  wonder  that  I  took  long  to  understand  him.  I 
was  born  in  the  city  of  Iroquois.  That  explains  a  lot. 
There  is  little  discipline  in  Iroquois.  It  has  no  history. 
There  has  never  been  a  war  there.  I  am  a  savage,  and 
I  look  decadent.  Ruffles  says  that  is  our  national  charm, 
the  charm  of  American  women.  There  seems  to  be 
something  peculiarly  seductive  about  the  frail  white 
barbarian  clothed  in  costly  laces,  who  masks  her  passion- 
ate blindness  under  extreme  frivolity.  Binky  found 
me  like  that  and  succumbed.  I  know  now  that  it  wasn't 
only  the  money.  I  clear  him  of  that  accusation.  But  he 
didn't  understand  what  it  was  that  attracted  him. 

We  are  domesticated  creatures,  we  American  women. 
We  love  our  bonds.  We  are  spoiled  and  petted,  and 
loaded  with  jewels,  and  we  are  crowned  with  the  assur- 
ance of  the  woman  who  is  born  where  women  are  scarce ; 
but  all  the  same  we  are  full  of  the  domestic  affection 
of  slaves,  and  our  lives  move  in  the  round  of  simple 


1 8  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

primitive  passions,  such  as  jealousy,  and  maternal  pride, 
and  the  lust  of  possessions. 

No  one  would  have  dreamed  to  have  looked  at  Phyllis 
and  Louise  that  night,  that  Phyllis  was  capable  of  plotting 
unspeakable  robberies,  and  indecent  self -revelations,  all 
because  of  her  enormous  greed,  or  that  Louise  could 
turn  her  husband  into  a  murderer  through  the  power 
of  her  furious  jealousy. 

So  much  geography  spreads  about  that  dinner  table 
that  it  seems  impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  the  pattern 
of  it.  And  yet  there  is  a  very  definite  pattern,  in  which 
Iroquois  is  linked  up  with  the  Afghan  frontier  and  the 
west  of  England.  And  then  think  of  the  time  it  took 
to  arrange  that  party,  fifteen  years  at  least,  or  perhaps 
thirty,  just  the  whole  of  my  lifetime.  For  my  life  seems 
to  me  an  interesting  affair  because  of  its  mistakes,  one 
mistake  leading  to  another  inevitably  until  the  whole 
lot  of  them  produced  that  final  scene  that  turned  Jim 
into  a  criminal.  For  this  war  isn't  the  final  scene,  it's 
really  not  in  the  story  at  all.  The  story  ended  on  the 
tenth  of  September  two  years  ago. 


CHAPTER  Two 

IF  you  can  imagine  the  whole  of  industrial  Man- 
chester, a  large  slice  of  the  Riviera,  most  of  the 
East  End  of  London,  with  half  a  dozen  Polish, 
Hungarian,  and  Italian  towns  thrown  into  one,  and  all 
spread  upon  a  brand  new  prairie  by  the  side  of  a  lake 
as  big  as  a  sea,  you  will  have  an  idea  of  Iroquois,  a  place 
of  gigantic  incongruities  and  pretensions!  And  Iro- 
quois is  American  as  no  other  city  in  the  United  States 
is  American.  New  York  is  New  York,  but  Iroquois 
is  American ;  it  is  gigantic,  it  is  provincial ;  it  has  sprouted 
like  a  mushroom  out  of  the  inexhaustible  riches  of  the 
prairie;  it  is  more  or  less  exactly  in  the  geographical 
centre  of  the  United  States. 

Iroquois  is  an  exciting  place.  I  always  think  of  it 
as  full  of  wind  and  noise.  In  winter  the  wind  tore 
down  the  lake  shore  in  hurricanes,  screamed  round 
buildings,  rattling  the  windows;  and  this  demoniacal 
yelling  of  the  wind,  together  with  the  crashing  of  waves 
on  the  stone  beach,  gave  a  queer  sharp  distinction  to 
the  extreme  richness  and  luxury  of  my  father's  house. 
There  is  something  splendidly  perverse  in  the  artificial 
seashore  of  the  city  bordered  for  twenty  miles  by  sky- 
scraping  office  buildings,  by  clubs,  railway  stations,  hotels 
and  palaces.  There  is  something  irrational  in  the  beau- 
tiful sweep  of  that  concrete  beach  built  that  the  wind 
should  not  eat  away  land  worth  a  thousand  dollars 
a  bucket,  and  built  so  cleverly  that  it  looks  for  all  the 

19 


20  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

world  like  the  real  thing.  From  a  point  on  the  outward 
curve  somewhere  opposite  the  Art  School,  a  grey  stone 
building  in  the  French  style  of  the  last  century,  one 
gets  a  view  back  along  the  shore,  and  always  I  am  startled 
to  find  there,  planted  by  the  shore,  no  bathing  houses, 
pavilions  or  boat  clubs,  but  the  headquarters  of  great 
industrial  enterprises,  the  shops  of  a  complex  city's 
appetites  and  the  palatial  mansions  of  millionaires.  My 
father's  house  was  one  of  these.  It  was-  built  of  grey 
stone,  in  a  kind  of  modified  Norman  style,  with  massive 
walls  and  a  tower  and  wrought-iron  gates  shutting  off 
the  driveway  from  the  street.  A  strip  of  grass  with 
tall  trees  at  regular  intervals  stretched  between  the  street 
and  the  lake.  I  remember  once  standing  in  the  library 
and  watching  three  ships  go  down  in  a  storm.  I  take 
it  that  a  room  is  built  for  protection,  to  shut  out  the 
menace  of  Nature,  and  enclose  us  in  a  lying  security. 
Our  palaces  in  Iroquois  weren't  very  successful  refuges. 
In  spite  of  the  damask  walls  and  Persian  rugs,  one 
could  see  ships  going  down  with  all  hands  on  board. 
We  kept  a  life-belt  and  a  coil  of  rope  inside  the  kitchen 
door  for  the  rescue  of  drowning  men.  I  remember 
on  several  occasions  that  one  of  our  kitchen  chairs 
was  commandeered  for  rescue  work  by  a  policeman, 
our  special  policeman.  We  rushed  out  after  him  once 
to  watch  with  the  crowd  while  he  let  it  down  by  the  rope 
over  the  stone  wall  to  the  man  struggling  there  in  the 
icy  water.  That  was  before  the  shelving  beach  of  con- 
crete was  built.  The  stone  wall  was  done  away  with 
because  the  waves  continually  ate  into  its  foundation, 
and  because  the  sheer  face  of  it  seemed  to  tempt  men 
to  commit  suicide  by  jumping  over  it.  The  man  whom 
we  watched  had  apparently  jumped  over,  but  had  found 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  21 

death  in  the  icy  water  too  terrible  and  had  changed  his 
mind.  He  grabbed  the  chair  and  was  drawn  up.  Half- 
way to  the  top,  however,  with  a  convulsive  movement, 
he  flung  himself  back  again  into  the  lake.  This  was 
repeated  four  times  while  the  policeman  and  several  mem- 
bers of  the  crowd  shouted  encouragement  to  him  through 
the  wind.  I  didn't  see  the  end,  for  my  governess,  spying 
us  from  the  schoolroom  window,  had  dashed  out  after 
us  and  pulled  me  away,  but  Dick  managed  to  elude  her, 
and  told  me  graphically  how  the  "  poor  geezer  "  had  been 
tired  out  at  the  last  and  had  gone  down. 

The  lake  was  a  constant  source  of  annoyance  to  the 
municipality  before  they  granted  the  money  for  that 
very  beautiful  beach.  It  ate  away  the  land  at  one  point, 
and  piled  up  sand  at  another.  Dredges  were  constantly 
at  work  somewhere  within  view,  and  just  south  of  our 
house  a  great  tract  of  new  land  was  built  out  into  the 
water.  I  don't  know  why ;  one  would  have  thought  there 
was  enough  land  with  the  prairie  stretching  away  for  ever 
to  the  north,  west,  and  south. 

The  north  side,  as  we  called  it,  ended  on  the  south  with 
the  river  —  a  narrow,  sluggish  stream  spanned  by  innum- 
erable drawbridges,  crammed  with  ships  and  barges  of 
every  description,  banked  with  factories,  and  warehouses, 
and  saloons.  A  romantic,  filthy  stream  this  river,  trav- 
elling by  slow  and  devious  routes  through  the  dark 
crowded  canyons  made  by  sky-scrapers.  One  could 
follow  it  up  by  walking  across  the  tops  of  the  close- 
packed  lake  craft  all  the  way  to  little  Hell,  that  cesspool 
of  life  where  the  races  of  the  earth  are  indistinguishable 
and  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man  lies  stupefied  in 
the  mud. 

I  knew  the  city.     In  spite  of  the  fact  that  my  father 


22  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

was  a  gentleman  and  owned  a  lot  of  it,  I  played  in  the 
streets.  My  three  brothers  and  myself  and  our  friends 
formed  a  sort  of  gang,  which  we  called  the  "  Hot  Push." 
The  Hot  Push  gathered  itself  together  every  day  after 
school.  What  became  of  our  governesses  I  don't  know. 
We,  at  least,  had  one,  presumably  to  watch  over  us  and 
help  with  our  lessons,  but  if  she  ever  dared  come  out 
with  us,  we  gave  her  the  slip  heartlessly  and  disappeared 
from  the  sight  of  the  grown-ups  until  dark.  Now  that 
I  think  of  it  our  fun  was  harmlessly  hedged  about  with 
ignored  conventions.  We  had  a  governess  who  succeeded 
in  functioning  for  five  minutes  before  each  meal  by 
inspecting  hands  and  faces,  and  one  minute  each  night 
in  each  bedroom  when  she  turned  out  the  light.  We  had 
a  back  yard  enclosed  by  a  high  stone  wall,  where  we 
were  supposed  to  play,  all  safe  from  tramps,  and  where 
the  boys  very  occasionally  condescended  to  do  tricks  on 
the  horizontal  bar  that  had  been  put  up  for  them.  We 
had  a  schoolroom,  but  always  did  our  lessons  in  the 
library  in  the  evenings  with  my  father  to  help  us.  In 
fact  my  mother's  idea  of  bringing  us  up  had  given  way 
to  the  enthusiasm  of  American  youth,  and  the  Hot  Push 
went  its  joyful  way,  unimpeded  by  parents,  attendants, 
or  policemen.  Its  activities  varied  with  the  seasons.  In 
the  autumn  it  played  football,  built  bonfires  of  dead 
leaves  in  the  streets,  and  persecuted  tradesmen.  In  the 
winter  it  went  skating  at  the  skating  rink,  or  tobogganing 
in  the  park,  and  "  hitching "  with  small  sleds  up  and 
down  the  whole  length  to  the  north  side,  behind  grocers' 
or  bakers'  or  milkmen's  wagons.  In  the  spring  it  played 
"  prisoner's  base,"  or  baseball,  or  "  hare  and  hound,"  and 
in  the  summer  it  disbanded  to  meet  again  in  the  autumn. 
But,  of  course,  besides  these  normal  pursuits  it  went 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  23 

in  for  all  sorts  of  other  things,  such  as  shooting  sparrows 
with  sling  shots,  and  cats  and  mice  with  air  guns. 
It  also  built  houses  in  back  yards,  and  steam  engines 
that  would  go,  with  machinery  from  my  father's  foundry  ; 
and  then  of  course  it  had  always  on  hand  the  war  with 
the  "  Micks." 

I  don't  know  how  it  was  that  I  was  allowed  to  share 
all  these  good  times  with  my  brothers  in  the  streets ; 
it  must  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  spirit  of 
democracy,  and  with  the  fact  that  Iroquois,  big  as  it 
was,  had  still  something  of  the  quality  of  a  country 
town.  I  remember  stretches  of  wooden  sidewalk  with 
mushrooms  growing  between  the  rotting  planks,  that  we 
used  to  pick,  cook  and  eat  at  the  risk  of  our  lives.  The 
numerous  vacant  lots  too,  gaping  between  Venetian  pal- 
aces and  Tudor  castles,  overgrown  with  bushes  and 
strewn  with  tin  cans,  these  were  an  evidence  of  the  fact 
that  Iroquois  was  not  quite  such  a  finished  city  as  it 
pretended  to  be.  It  was  doing  its  best  to  convert  wooden 
planks  into  concrete  pavements,  and  vacant  lots  into 
luxurious  dwellings,  but  it  seemed  to  have  bitten  off  more 
of  the  prairie  than  it  could  conveniently  chew  up  and 
swallow. 

It  had  managed  in  the  fifty  odd  years  of  its  life  to 
bring  forth  or  at  least  allow  one  gentleman  to  come  into 
being,  but  it  gave  birth  to  no  artist.  How  could  it? 

A  gentleman  was  miracle  enough.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  produced  a  whole  crop  of  saints.  Religious  leaders 
thrive  in  the  wilderness,  particularly  in  a  wilderness  full 
of  money  and  noise. 

There  was  no  established  church  in  Iroquois,  and  noth- 
ing well-behaved  about  religion.  It  was  a  furiously  mil- 
itant Protestantism  that  cried  loudly  in  the  wilderness, 


24  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

with  no  regard  for  good  manners,  or  good  taste.  I  wish 
it  had  not  been  so.  I  have  a  particular  grudge  against 
those  churches  of  Iroquois.  I  wish  my  mother  had  not 
come  within  their  reach.  My  mother  was  a  lady,  a  gentle, 
delicate  lady.  She  ought  to  have  been  born  in  an  Italian 
palace  and  have  gone  on  pilgrimages  to  Rome  for  the 
saving  of  her  dear  soul.  It  was  an  exquisite  soul,  you 
could  tell  by  her  face.  She  was  a  mediaeval  religieuse, 
and  she  was  a  member  of  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church. 
Wasn't  it  tragic  that  with  all  her  intense  religious  fervour 
she  could  find  no  fellowship  for  her  spirit  save  in  the 
Ebenezer  Sprott  Church?  I  have  always  been  afraid  of 
religious  experience  as  an  incipient  drunkard  is  afraid 
of  drink;  nevertheless,  in  spite  of  myself,  when  I  was 
thirteen  years  old  I  was  "  born  again."  That  is  what  it 
was  called  in  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church ;  and  as  it  took 
place  there  one  night  during  a  prayer  meeting  which  was 
part  of  a  revival,  the  members  of  the  church  ought  to 
know.  They  saw  me  at  it.  My  miserable  little  soul  was 
stripped  and  exposed  to  their  sanctified  curiosity.  It  is 
horrible  to  think  of.  I  shudder  at  the  indecency  of  it. 
I  can  see  myself  now,  a  quaking,  shivering  little  girl, 
rising  up  in  the  midst  of  that  heated  congregation  and  con- 
fessing my  sins  in  a  trembling  voice,  with  a  thousand  pairs 
of  eyes  devouring  my  shame  and  my  tears;  a  thousand 
minds  in  a  state  resembling  intoxication,  praising  God  for 
my  utter  and  disgraceful  loss  of  self-control.  It  is  a 
pitiful  sight  as  I  see  it  now,  and  the  pity  of  it  saves  it 
from  a  too  horrible  indecency.  I  was  very  young,  I 
couldn't  stand  up  against  all  the  terrible  weight  of  psychic 
influence  that  was  exerted  by  those  electrified  saints. 
After  all,  I  wasn't  so  very  much  to  blame  for  giving  in, 
but  mind  you,  I  knew  all  the  time  that  I  was  doing  an 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  25 

offensive  thing.  Even  in  the  midst  of  that  delicious 
delirium  the  still  small  voice  of  my  sane  self  told  me 
that  this  was  a  misdemeanour  of  a  particularly  danger- 
ous and  disgusting  kind.  What  it  amounted  to  was  this : 
I  humiliated  myself,  I  abrogated  my  will,  I  surrendered 
it  to  an  alien  influence ;  and  this  I  take  it  to  be  the  supreme 
crime,  and  to  do  so  publicly  the  supreme  indecency.  And 
the  strange  thing  is,  that  this  surrender  of  self,  this  public 
display  of  nakedness,  is  held  up  by  such  churches  as  the 
Ebenezer  Sprott  Church  as  the  only  way  to  salvation. 
They  revel  in  the  self-abnegation  and  in  the  mortification 
of  the  spirit.  Their  theology  is  full  of  expressions  about 
being  nothing  so  that  God  may  be  everything,  about  being 
dead  that  He  may  live,  and  so  on.  I  suppose,  granted  a 
God,  one  can  justify  it  all  logically  enough;  it's  not  their 
logic  that  I  am  criticizing.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I'm  not 
trying  to  criticize  them  at  all.  I  am  merely  stating  my 
own  experience ;  and  for  me,  the  participation  in  a  spirit- 
ual life,  thus  conducted,  was  a  perversion  of  my  most 
fundamental  instincts.  And  this  is  the  point  of  interest, 
namely,  that  although  I  knew  this,  still,  so  strong  was  the 
religious  influence  exerted  by  the  church,  that  I  suc- 
cumbed to  it.  Possibly  I  might  never  have  succumbed 
if  I  had  not  been  over-emotionalized  by  other  excesses. 

Life  was  full  of  emotions  for  the  youth  of  Iroquois. 
At  the  age  when,  doctors  and  reformers  would  tell  you, 
young  people  should  be  vegetating,  I  and  my  friends  were 
in  a  chronic  state  of  excitement.  It  seems  to  me  that 
some  one  of  us  was  always  rushing  in  upon  the  others, 
eyes  flashing,  hair  disordered,  breath  exhausted,  to  im- 
part some  startling  piece  of  news. 

We  were  excited  about  our  sweethearts,  about  the 
"  Micks,"  about  the  suicides  that  jumped  over  the  stone 


26  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

wall  into  the  lake,  about  our  parents  and  their  prohi- 
bitions, about  God  and  Sunday-school,  about  presidential 
elections,  and  political  parades,  and  strikes,  and  murders 
in  the  newspapers. 

And  this  excitement,  which  was  a  thing  in  itself,  like  an 
electric  current,  existing  in  us  and  in  the  composition  of 
the  city,  stirred  up  our  minds  to  a  feverish  and  perhaps 
disastrous  activity ;  disastrous  because  our  minds  were  so 
empty.  We  were  like  little  machines  driven  by  a  tre- 
mendous force,  grinding  on  and  on  with  flying  wheels  and 
with  no  weight  to  drive,  no  great  task  to  consume  the 
energy.  The  efforts  of  our  mothers  and  our  teachers 
seemed  to  be  exerted  to  drive  us  on  with  morals  and 
ideals,  while  no  one  put  any  facts  into  our  heads.  We 
were  taught  to  take  life  very  seriously,  and  told  nothing 
about  it,  nothing  more  accurate  than  my  mother's  state- 
ment that  it  was  the  gift  of  God. 

It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  Iroquois  to  let  you  think  the 
Ebenezer  Sprott  Church  was  the  only  church  in  the  city. 
There  were  hundreds  of  them,  all  kinds  —  Episcopal 
churches,  Congregational,  Presbyterian,  and  Baptist; 
Christian  Science  temples,  Jewish  synagogues,  a  Roman 
Catholic  Cathedral,  a  Zionist  chapel,  where  they  went  in 
for  faith-healing,  and,  I  believe,  a  Mormon  meeting- 
house, to  say  nothing  of  Salvation  Army  headquarters, 
and  down-town  missions  for  drunkards,  and  a  Buddhist 
shrine;  but  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church  was  the  place 
where  you  heard  the  Gospel.  That  was  the  reason  my 
mother  went  there.  She  had  left  a  fashionable  church  in 
a  storm  of  protest  and  gone  west  to  sit  among  her 
servants,  and  everybody  else's  servants,  and  bootmakers, 
and  bakers,  and  laundresses,  to  hear  the  Gospel. 

I  can  see  her  now,  sitting  in  that  congregation,  severely 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  27 

but  undeniably  well  clad,  surrounded  by  pimply,  untidy, 
sweaty  human  beings,  her  shell-like  face  turned  radiantly 
to  the  pulpit  where  the  low-bred  man,  with  a  face  like  a 
caricature  of  Michael  Angelo's  prophet  Hosea,  pro- 
pounded the  Gospel. 

I  didn't  like  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church.  I  didn't  like 
the  name,  and  when  I  was  asked  in  school  where  I  went 
to  church,  I  was  ashamed  to  say.  I  didn't  like  the  smells 
of  all  those  close-packed  bodies,  whose  habits  and  pocket- 
books  involved  the  use  of  not  quite  as  much  soap  and 
water  as  I  was  accustomed  to.  I  didn't  like  the  way  they 
came  up  to  you  after  service,  teary  about  the  eyes,  and 
pressed  your  hand  with  radiant  smiles  and  praised  the 
Lord.  Of  course  I  know  that  all  this  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  divine  Gospel  which  was  preached  there,  but  I 
can't  separate  the  theology  of  that  House  of  God  from 
its  aesthetic  envelope.  My  mother  could.  She  was  by 
nature  much  more  fastidious  than  I,  and  yet  she  could 
love  a  greasy  woman  with  bad  breath  and  a  jet  bonnet, 
because  she  was  a  sister-in-Christ.  My  mother  was  won- 
derful!  She  was  commanded  in  a  certain  verse  in  the 
New  Testament  to  cherish  the  saints,  and  she  did;  she 
loved  them,  all  the  most  pimply  ones,  and  had  them  home, 
fed  them  and  clothed  them,  and  let  them  flop  on  her.  I 
believe  they  really  were  made  beautiful  and  pleasant  to 
her,  by  the  light  of  her  own  charity,  I  mean  her  love  for  all 
Christ's  followers. 

There  were,  I  confess,  things  that  I  liked  in  the  church, 
but  I  was  ashamed  of  liking  them.  I  had  a  weakness 
for  the  Reverend  Ebenezer  Sprott  himself.  He  had  bad 
teeth  and  hollow  cheeks,  and  a  voice  like  a  gong,  and  when 
he  preached,  prancing  up  and  down  the  platform,  his  cav- 
ernous eyes  glowing,  and  his  Adam's  apple  working,  the 


28  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

terrific  emotional  impact  behind  his  words  made  me 
shiver,  deliciously.  He  would  throw  out  his  long,  bony 
hand  and  shout :  *'  Satan  shall  be  bound  a  thousand 
years,  but  he's  not  bound  now.  There  he  is  stalking  the 
streets."  It  was  very  exciting.  And  the  singing,  too, 
troubled  and  moved  me.  There  was  a  large  choir  of  some 
fifty  men  and  women,  and  they  sang  hymns  to  waltz  tunes, 
all  about  the  blood  of  Jesus,  and  I  joined  in  voluptuously, 
feeling  at  the  same  time  both  exultation  and  disgust. 

People  were  always  being  converted,  and  going  up  to 
the  altar  and  kneeling  down  in  public  as  a  sign  that  they 
had  found  grace.  Public  exposure  was  one  of  the  most 
tried  and  approved  methods  of  dealing  with  that  flock. 
The  Reverend  Ebenezer  at  the  end  of  every  service  would 
call  on  those  who  wished  to  accept  Christ  to  rise  and  con- 
fess their  faith.  My  knees  always  trembled  at  this  sum- 
mons, and  every  Sunday  as  I  watched  the  wretched  crea- 
tures who  rose  and  stammered  out  the  secrets  of  their 
poor  little  lives,  of  how  this  man  had  beaten  his  wife,  but 
by  the  Grace  of  God  would  do  it  no  more,  and  of  how 
that  woman  had  been  too  fond  of  drink,  I  would  blush 
furiously  and  hold  on  to  my  seat  in  terror  lest  the  Holy 
Spirit  drag  me  to  my  feet.  Half  a  dozen  such  confessions 
was  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things,  but  when  the  church 
was  struck  by  a  revival,  then  was  the  real  excitement ; 
then  you  could  hear  the  life  history  of  a  hundred  sinners 
in  an  hour,  except  that  half  a  dozen  talked  at  once.  I  say 
struck  by  a  revival,  because  the  tumult  in  that  church  was 
like  the  tumult  in  a  ship  that  is  struck  by  a  storm. 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  to  any  one  who  has  never 
witnessed  such  a  phenomenon  any  idea  of  its  character. 
Psychologically,  I  suppose,  it  is  closely  akin  to  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  29 

frenzied  obscenities  of  savage  rites.  The  negro  church 
in  America  forms  an  obvious  link  between  the  dances 
about  camp-fires  in  the  jungle  and  such  scenes  as  took 
place  in  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church.  And  the  fact  that 
these  orgies  prevail  throughout  the  whole  of  the  United 
States,  dragging  with  them  such  people  as  my  mother, 
only  proves  my  contention  that  we  are  savages. 

I  assure  you  the  whole  church  would  go  mad ;  more 
or  less  obviously,  more  or  less  dangerously,  but  anyhow 
mad.  The  little  wheel  of  reason  in  each  mind  was  re- 
versed and  set  spinning  backwards  at  an  accelerated  speed. 
I  remember  so  well  the  night  of  my  rebirth,  how  I  found 
myself  on  my  feet,  shaking  as  if  I  had  fever,  stammering 
out  something  about  the  sin  fulness  of  my  heart.  I  don't 
know  what  actual  deeds  I  confessed,  I  can't  think  what  my 
deflected  brain  could  have  fastened  on,  but  I  remember 
scores  of  people  round  me  were  sobbing  and  praising  the 
Lord,  and  that  a  suffocating  cloud  of  emotion  seemed  to 
fill  the  room  and  make  me  dizzy,  and  that  I  believed  this 
somehow  must  be  due  to  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
so  I  staggered  up  the  aisle  to  the  railing  and  knelt  down 
beside  a  man  in  a  sporting  checked  coat  and  began  to 
pray  and  cry. 

I  don't  know  how  long  I  was  there,  but  I  remember 
vowing  to  myself  that  I  would  go  as  a  missionary  to  the 
heathen,  after  I  had  first  converted  my  father  and  my 
brothers,  and  Phyllis,  and  Louise.  While  I  was  kneeling 
there,  some  one  began  the  song,  "At  the  cross,  at  the 
cross,"  and  I  felt  during  the  singing  that  my  heart  would 
burst,  that  I  wanted  to  die  right  then  and  go  to  heaven, 
and  then  suddenly  when  the  song  finished  I  had  a  vision 
of  myself  there,  kneeling  in  the  sight  of  everybody,  and 


30  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  felt  ashamed,  but  this  shame  I  knew  was  of  the  devil, 
so  I  stifled  it  and  went  on  praying  to  Christ  to  wash  my 
heart  clean. 

The  result  of  these  revivals  is  supposed  to  be  the  regen- 
eration of  character.  I  don't  know  whether  in  the  lives 
of  all  those  affected  by  the  upheaval  a  greater  clarity  of 
mind  and  righteousness  of  conduct  is  evidenced  subse- 
quently or  not.  It  is  difficult  to  collect  statistics  on  the 
point.  Did  the  man  who  confessed  to  wife-beating  give 
up  beating  his  wife,  and  if  so,  what  did  he  do  instead? 
No  one,  that  I  know  of,  has  gone  into  the  psychology  of 
conduct  after  conversion.  It  might  be  an  interesting 
piece  of  research  work;  I  can  only  speak  for  myself. 
The  immediate  result  of  that  revivalist  prayer  meeting 
was  a  desire  to  make  converts.  A  shred  of  decency  left 
hanging  to  me  kept  me  off  my  father,  but  I  tackled  Phyllis 
straight  away.  I  made  her  read  the  Bible  with  me.  I 
made  her  get  down  on  her  knees  and  pray  with  me.  I 
reduced  her,  in  fact,  with  astounding  ease  to  a  little  piece 
of  religious  pulp.  She  announced  herself  converted,  and 
promised  to  read  the  Bible  every  morning,  a  vow  which 
she  kept  a  fortnight.  With  Louise  I  was  less  successful. 
Her  mother  interfered  and  sent  me  home  with  a  mental 
box  on  the  ear.  As  to  whether  my  experience  made  me 
any  more  loving  and  kind  and  generous,  I  couldn't  say. 
It  certainly  made  me  more  anxious  to  do  right,  more  self- 
conscious  in  conduct,  and  for  a  time  it  acted  as  a  check 
upon  my  quest  for  knowledge;  knowledge  even  came  to 
assume  the  character  of  a  sinful  thing.  My  mother  gave 
me  as  a  test  of  the  Tightness  and  wrongness  of  a  thing  the 
following  maxim.  If  you  are  sure  that  you  could  do  and 
would  do  such  and  such  a  thing  with  Jesus  if  He  were 
actually  here,  then  do  it.  Well,  there  was  no  doubt  in  my 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  31 

mind  that  Jesus  would  censor  a  number  of  books.  I  felt 
that  I  couldn't  very  well  read  aloud  to  Him  Tolstoi's 
"  Resurrection,"  which  had  been  forbidden  by  my  mother 
anyhow ;  so  I  abandoned  it  in  the  middle  and  put  it  in  the 
fire.  Probably  this  was  good.  I've  an  idea  that  "  Resur- 
rection "  would  be  unwholesome  reading  for  a  girl  of  thir- 
teen, particularly  an  ignorant  girl ;  but  if  my  conscience 
saved  me  some  unhealthy  food,  I'm  sure  the  continued 
excitement  of  prayer  meetings  was  equally  unhealthy. 
Prayer  meetings  were  my  chief  dissipation  that  winter, 
their  hold  on  me  slackening  so  imperceptibly  that  my  re- 
version to  former  freedom  came  all  unexpectedly,  with 
only  a  slight  bump.  The  experience  altogether  was  like 
falling  in  love,  giving  way  to  desire,  and  then  gradually 
getting  bored. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

PHYLLIS  DAY  and  Louise  Bowers  belonged  to  the 
"  Hot  Push,"  Jim  Van  Orden,  of  course,  and 
Tommy  Dodge,  Sally  Comstock,  and  Gus  Brown, 
and  half  a  dozen  others  besides  my  three  brothers,  Dick, 
Jerry,  and  Bud.  Phyllis  and  Louise  were  my  bosom 
friends.  We  went  to  the  same  school,  and  during  school 
hours  we  wrote  daily  voluminous  letters  to  each  other 
such  as  sisters  might  write  who  had  been  long  separated, 
and  smuggled  them  across  from  one  desk  to  another  in 
the  covers  of  textbooks.  We  met  moreover  every  after- 
noon as  soon  after  lunch  as  possible. 

I  remember  one  day  in  the  butler's  pantry  that  we 
had  a  momentous  conversation.  We  were  about  the  same 
age  —  I  was  twelve.  I  seem  to  have  rather  a  vivid  idea 
of  what  we  looked  like  that  day,  perhaps  because  I  sat 
on  the  sink  opposite  the  square  looking-glass  where  Ed- 
ward tied  his  butler's  tie.  We  had  on  sweaters  and  tam- 
o'-shanters,  and  our  long  thin  legs  stuck  out  from  under 
short  woollen  skirts.  The  icebox  was  open,  and  we  had 
hauled  various  eatables  out  of  its  depths.  We  sat  with 
our  feet  dangling,  eating  olives,  salted  almonds,  and  choco- 
late cake  with  a  gusto  that  betokened  a  perfect  confidence 
in  the  capacity  of  our  own  insides  and  that  of  the  ice- 
box, that  betokened  more  —  an  absolute  belief  in  the  great 
American  god  who  gave  little  girls  joy  of  their  stomachs. 
The  chocolate  cake  was  of  an  exceedingly  rich,  damp 
kind,  called  Devil's  food,  a  special  source  of  gluttonous 

32 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  33 

joy  to  Phyllis,  who  had  been  known  to  eat  a  whole  two- 
pound  cake  without  a  sign  of  discomfiture.  One  would 
never  have  imagined  it  of  Phyllis.  None  of  us  looked  at 
all  like  gluttons.  We  had  alert,  restless  heads  and  a 
nervous  vivacity  that  would  have  given  a  stranger  the 
impression  that  we  lived  on  a  special  brand  of  rarefied  air. 
Neither  would  one  have  supposed  from  the  way  Phyllis 
dived  into  the  icebox  that  it  was  my  icebox.  I  didn't  go  in 
for  being  a  hostess.  What  the  gods  put  in  our  way  we  ac- 
cepted unquestioningly,  and  enjoyed  in  common;  books, 
ribbons,  pocket-money,  food,  adventures,  secrets,  animos- 
ities, and  loves.  We  had  formed  a  triangular  compact 
to  be  "  chums  "  for  ever.  That  there  were  forces  at  work 
already,  to  tear  us  asunder,  we  were  blissfully  unaware. 
The  house  was  nice,  we  knew,  and  large,  a  glorious  place 
for  hide-and-seek  on  wet  days,  a  place  of  innumerable 
rooms  and  cupboards,  of  romantic  cellars,  coal-bins  and 
back  stairs.  That  it  represented  great  wealth  was  none  of 
our  affair.  We  had  the  vaguest  ideas  about  wealth.  We 
had  the  vaguest  ideas  about  every  prosaic  thing.  That 
our  parents  were,  comparatively  speaking,  strangers  did 
not  concern  us.  The  things,  indeed,  that  did  not  concern 
us  were  legion. 

We  realized  that  Phyllis  was  handicapped  in  life  because 
Mrs.  Day's  cook  was  continually  leaving.  Phyllis  often 
had  to  cook  the  dinner.  This  gave  her  dignity  in  our 
eyes.  We  envied  her  skill  with  pots  and  pans.  We  con- 
sidered her  power  in  the  little  dark  kitchen  in  Oak  Street 
wonderful. 

The  fact  that  our  three  mothers  sent  us  to  the  same 
school  is  significant ;  it  is  what  Ruffles  would  call  "  one  in 
the  eye  "  for  Iroquois.  Ruffles  once  spent  three  days  in 
Iroquois.  He  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  elevated  rail' 


34 

roads  and  the  number  of  "  candy  stores."  He  to  this  day 
talks  of  the  "  candy  stores  of  Iroquois."  But  what  I 
started  to  say  was  that  Miss  Broadwood's  Private  School 
for  Girls  places  the  social  system  of  Iroquois  definitely, 
places  it  rather  nearer  to  the  camps  of  Iroquois'  pioneer 
settlers  than  it  would  like  to  admit.  My  mother  never 
dreamed  of  educating  me  at  home ;  Mrs.  Bowers  dreamed 
of  it  because  she  had  heard  that  all  good  families  in  Eng- 
land did  this  with  their  daughters,  and  Mrs.  Day,  the 
poverty-soured,  heart-sick  woman  shut  out  from  Society, 
looked  upon  Phil's  entrance  into  Miss  Broadwood's  as  a 
triumph.  It  was  a  triumph,  a  triumph  over  little  dreadful 
obstacles  such  as  grocer's  bills,  rent,  clothes,  and  Mr. 
Day's  obstinate  worry.  It  would  have  been  much  easier 
to  let  Phyllis  go  to  the  public  school,  where  one  got  a 
better  education  for  nothing,  but  Mrs.  Day  had  her  dreams 
and  ambitions,  dreams  that  made  her  heart  beat  fitfully 
as  she  sat  in  her  window  sewing  ceaselessly,  and  thinking 
of  Phyllis's  dimples. 

We  knew  nothing  of  all  this.  Phyllis  was  certainly  the 
prettiest  of  the  three  and  the  most  alluring.  She  was 
always  laughing.  Her  teeth  were  white  and  shining,  and 
her  delicate  nose  quivered  when  she  laughed,  while 
dimples  came  in  her  slender  cheeks.  Her  hair  was  the 
colour  of  sunlight  and  her  eyes  blue,  with  long  golden 
lashes  that  curled  up  at  the  ends.  She  had  a  sparkling, 
scrawny  loveliness,  and  never  seemed  to  care  about  any- 
thing, just  laughed  and  screwed  up  her  nose  and  floated 
away  from  trouble. 

Louise  looked  stiff  beside  her,  but  had  a  proud,  disdain- 
ful air  that  carried  her  through  most  situations  with  suc- 
cess. When  she  thought  about  herself,  she  was  usually 
prim  or  elaborately  enthusiastic,  but  often  under  our  infiu- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  35 

ence,  she  succumbed  to  being  nice  and  jolly.  Neverthe- 
less, in  her  most  hoydenish  and  abandoned  moments,  her 
hair,  which  was  crinkly,  bushy  hair,  maintained  its  com- 
pact mass  of  thick  curls  unruffled,  and  there  was  always  a 
kind  of  smart  daintiness  about  her.  Louise  was  the  most 
"  brought  up "  of  us.  She  already  bore  her  mother's 
stamp. 

I  held  the  other  two  together.  I  believed  that  they 
must  love  each  other,  and  so  they  did.  They  both  gave 
in  to  me.  It  was  I  who  had  insisted  on  our  all  tattooing 
our  arms  by  means  of  needles  and  ink,  as  a  badge  of  un- 
dying friendship.  Phyllis  had  sniffed  and  pooh-poohed, 
but  had  agreed  half  amused.  Louise  had  gone  ahead 
doggedly  pricking  and  scratching,  wondering  what  on 
earth  her  mother  would  say.  I  alone  had  really  enjoyed 
it,  the  self-inflicted  torture,  and  the  high  sentiment  of  the 
thing. 

Phyllis  had  no  use  for  me  when  I  was  in  what  she  called 
a  "  sloppy  "  mood.  She  was  always  teasing  me  about  Jim. 
Boys  were  the  same  as  girls  to  Phyllis,  only  more  fun. 
She  never  dreamed  about  them  at  night,  or  carried  a  pho- 
tograph of  one  in  the  back  of  her  watch.  She  was  more 
worldly-wise  than  Louise  and  I.  The  close  quarters  of 
the  little  house  in  Oak  Street  had  taught  her  things ;  and 
her  mother,  with  no  one  else  to  talk  to,  treated  her  much 
of  the  time  as  an  equal.  She  had  made  up  her  mind 
already  that  she  would  marry  a  man  with  heaps  of  money, 
and  although  she  was  as  full  of  caresses  and  terms  of 
endearment  as  a  kitten  is  full  of  purring  sounds,  she 
didn't  think  much  about  loving  people.  To  have  a  good 
time  was  all  she  wanted.  It  astonished  her  that  I  should 
be  always  getting  wrought-up  about  people,  and  dreams, 
and  right  and  wrong.  Poverty  was  the  only  thing  she 


36  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

hated.     Already,  beneath  her  sparkling  vivacity,  a  layer 
of  hardness  was  beginning  to  form. 

"  One  I  love, 
Two  I  love, 
Three  I  love,  I  say; 
Four  I  love  with  all  ray  heart, 
Five  I  cast  away, 
Six  he  loves 

"  Six  he  loves,"  I  repeated,  gazing  at  the  apple  seeds 
in  my  sticky  palm. 

"  Rats !  "  muttered  Phyllis. 

"  You've  missed  one,"  said  Louise. 

"  Oh,  so  I  have."  I  flushed.  Not  for  worlds  would  I 
deceive  myself  about  the  number  of  those  seeds,  but  I 
would  eat  another  apple  and  count  again.  And  while  my 
teeth  set  to  work,  my  mind  was  occupied  with  the  vision 
of  a  young  man,  a  young  man  of  fourteen  in  his  first 
suit  of  long  trousers,  and  with  the  secret  of  his  affections 
that  somehow  was  hidden  away  in  the  core  of  that  apple. 

We  each  had  a  special  boy  friend,  a  beau.  Dick,  my 
eldest  brother,  was  sweet  on  Louise ;  Tommy  Dodge,  who 
was  a  very  fat  boy  with  a  comic  lisp  and  an  inordinate 
appetite  for  candy,  belonged  to  Phyllis.  Phyllis  tolerated 
him  because  he  was  funny,  but  I'm  sure  she  never  let  him 
kiss  her. 

Affairs  of  the  heart  occurred  early  among  the  youth 
of  Iroquois.  Girls  and  boys  playing  together,  skating, 
romping,  walking  to  school,  would  suddenly  see  each  other 
in  romantic  high-lights ;  hearts  would  thrill,  imaginations 
be  touched.  Shy,  sullen  boys'  eyes  would  express,  sud- 
denly, reverence  and  sentiment  where  before  had  been 
contempt.  Photographs  would  change  hands.  Some- 
times on  Saturday  nights  a  number  of  shame- faced  youths 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  37 

would  go  to  Brinckman's  flower  store  and  buy  the  flowers 
left  over  at  the  week's  end,  buy  them  cheap  to  be  sure, 
but  pay  for  them  from  weekly  allowances  and  present 
them  sheepishly  or  with  assumed  nonchalance  to  thrilling 
maidens.  Romantic,  delicious  affairs  were  these,  clothed 
by  the  girls  in  all  the  language  of  grand  passion,  orna- 
mented with  vague  high-sounding  phrases  borrowed  from 
novels  half-understood,  or  from  the  conversation  of  adults 
even  less  comprehensible. 

I  was  twelve  years  old,  and  considered  myself  seriously 
in  love.  I  was  consumed  with  the  delicious  pain  of 
exalted  emotion.  My  mind  was  filled  with  enthusiasm 
for  life,  crowded  with  beautiful  memories,  of  music 
and  pictures,  and  travels  to  strange  places.  But  I  knew 
nothing  about  sex.  Wrapped  in  an  impenetrable  garb 
of  romantic  ignorance,  I  had  dashed  through  childhood 
with  my  brothers,  joyous  and  sad,  jolly  or  sentimental, 
vague,  wondering,  untainted.  And  something  about  me, 
pride  or  sensitiveness,  or  innocence,  kept  the  tongues  of 
less  innocent  children  still  in  my  presence. 

"  Would  you  marry  him,  if  he  asked  you  ?  "  questioned 
Louise. 

I  flushed  again. 

"  Yes,"  I  said  at  last. 

Phyllis  grunted.  "  If  I  were  you,  I'd  make  up  my 
mind  to  marry  a  duke,"  she  said  abruptly. 

I  gazed  at  her.     The  idea  struck  me  as  rather  exciting. 

"  You  probably  will,"  went  on  Phyllis.  "  Mother  said 
so."  This  was  a  revelation.  That  Mrs.  Day  even 
thought  about  me  was  strange.  We  sat  silent,  eating 
languidly  now;  and  thinking.  It  occurred  to  me  for 
the  first  time  that  we  might  not,  after  all,  be  friends  for 
ever. 


38  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  I  am  going  to  a  French  convent  next  year,  or  the 
year  after,"  announced  Louise  at  last.  She  heaved  a 
rather  affected  sigh. 

"  Oh,  Loo,  how  dreadful!  "  I  gasped. 

"  You'll  have  nothing  but  dried  fish  to  eat,"  said 
Phyllis ;  "  and  there'll  be  a  window  in  your  door  so 
that  the  nuns  can  look  into  your  bedroom  at  any  time 
of  day  or  night." 

Louise  had  hoped  to  be  the  centre  of  envy.  This  was 
disappointing. 

"  I  shall  probably  become  a  Catholic,"  she  ventured 
tragically. 

"  And  kiss  the  Pope's  toe,"  giggled  Phyllis.  Louise 
frowned.  I  felt  that  things  were  getting  rather  strained. 

"  I  suppose  we'll  all  be  separated  for  years  and  years," 
I  put  in  very  earnestly ;  "  but  we'll  never,  never  give  up 
being  chums  whatever  our  destinies."  I  tossed  my  hair 
from  my  shoulders,  and  my  face  no  doubt  shone  with 
the  vision  of  the  future.  Phyllis  looked  at  me  sidewise 
out  of  her  bright,  sceptic  eyes. 

"  Destinies,"  she  echoed,  sniffing.  "  Gee  whiz."  She 
giggled.  Her  delicious  lips  curved,  sweet  and  impudent. 

"  Marriage  I  suppose  she  means,"  said  Louise  im- 
portantly. She  had  a  way  of  explaining  people  to  them- 
selves. "  When  I'm  married  I  shall  have  twelve  brides- 
maids, and  Joan  will  be  maid  of  honour.  You'll  all  have 
pink  chiffon  dresses  with  silver  lace." 

"  Pink  isn't  becoming  to  me,"  said  Phil,  "  nor  to  Joan 
either.  Her  hair's  too  reddy." 

Louise  looked  troubled.  She  fought  her  desire  for 
pink  chiffon.  She  scrutinized  me.  "  Joan's  hair's  not 
red,  it's  purple." 

"  Gosh,  you  are  silly  —  purple  hair !  " 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  39 

"  Wellj  it  is.     Just  you  look." 

I  looked  in  Edward's  glass.  "  It's  the  colour  of  the 
sideboard." 

14  Mahogany  hair,"  giggled  Phil,  trying  to  stuff  down 

a  last  bit  of  cake.  "  Anyhow  I  won't  wear  pink 

besides,  I  may  be  married  first." 

There  was  a  sound  of  some  one  falling  up  the  back 
stairs,  and  in  another  minute  a  small  red  boy  burst  into 
the  pantry,  his  eyes  ablaze.  It  was  Jerry. 

Dear  Jerry,  he  has  always  been  the  ugliest  creature 
on  God's  earth.  He  was  ugly  as  a  small  boy,  he  was 
ugly  as  a  youth,  and  he  is  ugly  as  a  man.  His  hair  is 
a  pale  sandy  red,  not  a  flaming  shouting  red  like  Pat's. 
His  face  is  red  too,  and  speckled  all  over  with  large 
freckles.  His  mouth  is  very  wide.  In  repose  he  has 
a  timid,  mournful  expression,  and  when  he  grins  the 
change  is  so  startling  that  it  makes  you  laugh.  He  is 
always  grinning  and  making  you  laugh.  He  has  only 
one  beauty,  a  very  nice  white  set  of  teeth. 

Dear  Jerry.  He  was  the  youngest  and  we  all  bullied 
him  unmercifully,  and  he  has  paid  us  all  back  with 
years  of  faithful  kindness.  It  was  only  three  months 
ago  that  he  came  to  see  me,  all  the  way  from  Iroquois 
to  London,  to  comfort  me  when  Binky  went  to  the  war. 
Dear  believing  Jerry.  I've  never  told  him  anything  about 
Binky  and  me.  I  couldn't. 

"  Come  on,  you  girls ;  something  doing,"  he  splut- 
tered, and  disappeared  again. 

We  were  after  him  in  a  flash.  The  icebox  was  left 
open  with  remnants  of  cake  strewn  about.  We  pulled 
on  our  woollen  gloves  as  we  hurled  ourselves  out  of  the 
front  door.  A  gust  of  icy  air  rushed  into  the  warm  hall, 
the  door  closed  with  a  bang. 


40  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Jerry  talked  in  jerks  as  we  ran  along.  His  youth 
and  insignificance  were  outweighed  for  the  moment  by 
the  immensity  of  his  news. 

"  There's  a  fight.  The  '  Micks  ' —  the  whole  gang  —  in 
the  vacant  lot  on  Oak  Street.  Dick's  got  a  black  eye 
already.  Began  coming  out  of  school." 

We  sped  on. 

MacAvoy's  school  was  the  masculine  twin  of  Miss 
Broadwood's.  My  brothers,  and  Jim  Van  Orden,  and 
Gus,  and  Tommy  Dodge,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  crowd 
went  there.  Next  door  to  it  was  the  public  school, 
the  home  of  free  education,  and  the  headquarters  of 
an  army  hard  to  characterize,  a  vast  heterogeneous  rabble 
of  boys,  differentiated  from  MacAvoy's  boys  by  subtle 
yet  unmistakable  signs.  It  was  not  that  they  were  all 
poor  and  the  others  all  rich,  though  that  might  have 
been  the  slipshod  judgment  of  a  casual  observer.  Some 
of  them  were  sons  of  well-to-do  families  enough.  Their 
fathers  kept  shops  and  hotels,  managed  street  railways, 
paved  streets,  butchered  cattle,  bossed  political  parties, 
and  in  fact  ran  the  town ;  but  they  were  not  gentlemen. 
They  had  names  like  Zimmerman,  Weinburger,  O'Sul- 
livan,  O'Brien,  Eikenstein,  Brodovsky,  Chenelli;  Amer- 
ican citizens  certainly,  most  aggressively  so.  They  chose 
the  Mayor  and  the  City  Government,  and  out  of  their 
number  many  a  senator  had  gone  to  the  White  House. 
Down  town  in  offices  or  at  restaurants  they  met  such 
men  as  John  J.  Fairfax  and  Harry  Van  Orden  and 
Charlie  Bowers,  but  never  did  they  enter  the  homes 
or  the  clubs  of  these  men.  And  they  didn't  want  to. 
They  had  a  world  of  their  own,  beer-gardens,  ball-rooms, 
synagogues  and  churches,  German  or  Catholic,  but  for 
all  their  palatial  clubs  their  sons  were  "  Micks  "  in  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  41 

minds  of  MacAvoy's  boys,  and  knew  it,  admitting  the 
appellation  savagely. 

How  the  public  schoolboys  had  come  to  be  called 
"  Micks  "  I  don't  know,  but  "  Micks  "  they  were,  and  they 
waged  incessant  guerilla  warfare  on  the  gentlemen's  sons 
who  studied  the  same  books  next  door. 

There  was  no  special  reason,  unless  it  was  for  the 
possession  of  the  street,  for  the  fights  that  took  place; 
yet  fights  there  always  were,  more  or  less.  The  two 
schools  let  out  at  the  same  time,  and  there  was  a  constant 
dispute  as  to  "  the  right  of  way "  to  Kranz's  German 
Bakery,  where  thousands  of  pies  and  cakes  appeared  and 
disappeared  daily. 

It  seemed  almost  as  though  this  red-handed,  glove- 
less  Irish-German- Jew-and- Yankee  rabble  had  vowed  not 
only  to  deprive  the  "  Softies  "  of  pumpkin  pies,  but  to 
drive  them  off  the  earth  altogether. 

And  the  "  Softies,"  while  looking  extremely  neat  and 
fair  in  comparison  with  the  flaring  reds  and  dusky  browns 
of  the  rougher  lot,  were  still  far  from  deserving  the 
title.  They  numbered  those  who  were  past-masters  in 
the  art  of  fist  fights,  notably  Dick  Fairfax  and  Jim  Van 
Orden.  None  of  the  "  Micks  "  was  a  match  for  these 
two,  except  Pat  O'Brien,  the  leader  of  the  gang. 

Pat  O'Brien  was  a  figure  terrible  and  thrilling  to  us. 
We  quaked  when  we  saw  him  slouching  down  the  street 
plotting  unspeakable  things,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
his  heavy  jaws  thrust  into  the  muffler  round  his  neck. 
His  cap  was  always  pulled  over  one  eye,  and  he  sneered 
at  us  as  he  passed.  We  didn't  know  where  he  lived, 
but  we  imagined  somewhere  on  Grant  Street  over  a 
saloon,  perhaps,  because  he  frequented  saloons.  It 
was  a  fearsome  thing  to  watch  him  dive  through  the 


42  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

swaying  doors  of  a  saloon.  We  imagined  him  drinking 
beer  with  ugly  full-grown  men.  Sometimes  he  smoked 
cigarettes,  which  gave  him  a  sinister,  devilish  air, 
inspiring  awe  as  well  as  antagonism  in  our  hearts. 
Probably  he  was  not  more  than  fourteen,  but  he  was 
bigger  than  the  others  and  had  the  ponderous  swagger 
of  a  man  who  owned  the  earth.  The  finishing  touch  to 
his  exciting  ugly  portrait  had  been  given  when  I  learned 
about  the  pistol.  He  had  pulled  it  out  of  his  pocket  in 
an  alley. 

I  fled  along  behind  Jerry,  my  heart  in  my  mouth. 
Phyllis  was  laughing  and  gasping  for  breath.  How  could 
she  laugh?  Even  Louise's  disdainful  blue  eyes  shone 
with  terrified  anticipation.  Turning  a  corner,  we  came 
suddenly  on  the  battle-ground. 

The  vacant  lot,  as  a  rule  bare  of  everything  save 
scraggy  bushes  and  tin  cans,  was  swarming  with  boys, 
and  in  the  centre  of  the  mob  was  a  cleared  space,  and 
in  this  space  a  double  fight  was  going  on  between  Patrick 
O'Brien,  another  "Mick,"  Dick  and  Jim  —  Dick  was 
my  eldest  brother.  Silently,  furiously  they  lunged  as 
one  another's  fists  flashed  in  and  out,  crashed  against  jaws 
and  noses.  Blood  was  trickling  down  Jim's  face. 

We  three  girls,  having  wedged  our  way  through  the 
crowd  of  boys,  stood  fascinated.  We  were  seized  with 
exultation.  Jim  and  Dick  weren't  half  the  size  of  the 
other  two,  but  they  fought  better.  The  thirst  for  blood 
was  in  our  hearts. 

"  Go  it !     Go  it !  "  we  whispered  fiercely. 

Great  and  beautiful  stone  houses  in  French  and  Italian 
and  English  architecture  rose  on  three  sides  of  the  lot, 
and  on  the  fourth  side  was  the  drive  and  the  lake  front. 
Some  day  the  frozen  ground  of  the  lot  itself  would 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  43 

bring  forth  a  mansion  fit  for  a  king.  It  was  a  cold, 
dull  day,  sharpened  by  an  icy  wind.  A  wave  dashed 
now  and  then  high  into  the  air.  No  one  thought  of 
parents.  Even  Louise  had  forgotten  her  ladylike 
demeanour.  "  Go  it !  Go  it !  "  she  was  muttering  again 
and  again,  her  fists  clenched. 

Jim's  face,  at  ordinary  times  as  pretty  as  a  baby's,  was 
smeared  with  blood  and  dirt.  One  eye  was  bulging 
visibly.  His  thick  gold  hair  stood  up  stiff  in  the  wind, 
and  his  curved  mouth  was  set  in  absurd  grimness.  This 
way  and  that  his  thin  body  bent,  dodged,  ducked, 
swayed,  while  his  feet  danced  ceaselessly,  scraping  the 
frozen  ground ;  and  his  fists  shot  in  and  out.  Dick's 
nose  was  bleeding  profusely.  His  lunging  was  more  wild 
than  Jim's  deft,  clean  movements,  but  then  his  antagonist 
was  the  fearful  Pat,  who  snorted  like  a  fiery  dragon, 
muttering  horribly,  and  hammering  relentlessly  with  huge 
fists.  And  all  around  stood  ragged  boys  and  clean,  well- 
dressed  boys  silently  intent,  only  now  and  then  moved  to 
shout  for  their  champions. 

But  there  was  a  sudden  alarm. 

"  The  copper ! "  yelled  a  voice.  A  policeman  was 
sighted  in  the  distance. 

Instantly  the  crowd  demobilized.  The  girls  were 
swamped  where  they  stood.  A  wild  rushing  rabble  of 
boys  swept  us  along,  and  by  the  time  the  policeman 
reached  the  spot  not  a  sign  of  life  was  to  be  seen ;  nothing 
but  tin  cans  and  trampled  bushes  and  bare,  frozen 
ground. 

I  found  myself  pelting  down  an  alley,  a  hand  on  either 
side  grabbing  an  elbow  to  help  me  along.  Vaguely  I 
realized  that  my  two  aids  were  Jim  and  Dick,  and  that 
we  were  being  pursued  not  by  the  policeman,  but  by  the 


44  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  Micks."  I  ran  faster,  incredibly  faster.  A  stone  hit 
me  on  the  back,  hurting  between  the  shoulder-blades. 

"  This  way,"  muttered  Jim.  His  mouth  was  set.  He 
breathed  hard.  A  trickle  of  blood  had  congealed  on 
his  cheek.  How  I  adored  him !  The  back  yards  of  a 
row  of  houses  opened  doors  into  the  alley.  We  burst 
through  one  of  these  doors  into  a  yard.  Yells  followed 
us.  We  scrambled  up  some  kitchen  steps,  what  steps 
of  what  house  we  did  not  know.  The  kitchen  door  was 
locked,  and  the  "  Micks  "  werp  pouring  into  the  yard. 
They  were  armed  with  stones,  and  they  snarled,  jeered, 
and  yelled  tauntingly. 

"  Go  home  to  your  ma." 

"  Run,  tootsey  wootsey,  run." 

"  You're  a  rummie  geezer,  you  are." 

For  one  instant  I  stood  exultant,  looking  down  on 
them.  "  This,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  must  have  been  the 
way  Marie  Antoinette  felt  when  she  faced  *he  mob  at 
Versailles. 

Then  the  kitchen  door  burst  open  and  we  fell  into 
safety. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

MY  father  and  mother  loved  each  other. 
I  don't  want  to  modify  that  statement.    I 
should  like  it  to  stand  as  a  challenge  or  an 
article  of  faith. 

My  father  was  a  silent  man.  He  talked  when  it  was 
necessary,  or  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  wanted  to. 
His  silence  was  definite  and  profound.  One  couldn't 
tell  whether  he  was  listening  to  the  people  about  him 
or  not,  and  it  took  a  deal  of  courage  to  break  through 
his  reserve.  He  seemed  to  carry  with  him  a  stern  still- 
ness, sensible  even  in  the  street  or  on  a  crowded  tram- 
car.  People  never  seemed  to  get  near  him.  He  had  a 
flowing  moustache,  and  it  was  a  habit  of  his  when  thinking 
to  pull  the  plumes  of  his  moustache  with  his  hand, 
absently,  first  on  one  side  then  on  the  other.  A  smile 
from  him  was  startling,  as  startling  to  me  when  I  was 
a  child  as  if  a  General  had  suddenly  turned  his  eyes 
from  surveying  a  vast  and  puzzling  battlefield,  to  greet 
me  affectionately.  There  was  something  military  in  his 
appearance,  in  the  flare  of  the  moustache  and  the 
square  set  of  the  shoulders  and  the  erectness  of  his 
carriage. 

He  was  strangely  isolated.  I  didn't  understand  it  in 
those  days,  but  I  think  I  do  now.  It  was  simply  the 
isolation  of  refinement.  There  were  three  million  people 
in  Iroquois,  but  he  was  the  only  gentleman.  Charlie 

45 


46  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Bowers  couldn't  be  called  a  gentleman,  he  was  too  much 
like  a  draper's  assistant.  Mrs.  Charlie  had  done  her 
best  to  make  him  one,  but  it  was  like  most  of  her  efforts, 
rather  a  bad  imitation.  Mr.  Van  Orden  came  near  it, 
but  when  he  was  drunk  he  was  not.  Besides  this  he  was 
too  charming,  too  jovial.  He  didn't  weigh  enough.  I 
seem  to  have  gathered  an  impression  somehow  during 
my  youth  in  Iroquois  that  when  strangers  came  to  the 
city  they  were  shown  my  father  as  one  of  the  sights. 
Probably  he  was  unaware  of  this.  It  was  impossible 
to  tell  of  what  he  was  aware.  Perhaps  my  own  im- 
pression was  mistaken,  and  based  merely  on  the  fact 
that  conducted  tours  in  large  motors  would  stop  out- 
side the  house  while  a  courier  shouted  through  a  mega- 
phone that  this  was  the  "  magnificent  residence  of  John 
J.  Fairfax,  millionaire."  Of  course  I  knew  vaguely  as 
a  child  that  he  was  very  rich,  but  that  fact  didn't  seem 
to  matter.  There  was  no  chink  of  money  in  the  house, 
and  no  one  talked  about  what  things  cost.  It  was  all 
taken  for  granted,  and  that  reminds  me  of  a  remark 
of  his,  one  night  when  he  quite  unexpectedly  talked  to 
me. 

We  were  in  London.  It  was  a  week  or  two  before 
my  wedding.  I  remember  how  he  stood  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  the  house  he  had  taken  for  me  in  Arlington 
Street.  We,  he  and  I,  had  been  giving  a  dinner,  and 
our  guests  had  gone,  leaving  the  room  with  that  vast 
disarranged  emptiness  that  follows  such  a  crowded 
couple  of  hours.  Binky  had  been  there,  of  course,  and 
a  number  of  Binky 's  relatives;  but  I  had  felt  all  the 
evening  tremendously  conscious  of  my  father.  His 
personality  had  been  for  me  on  that  occasion,  as  on 
all  the  other  occasions  during  that  season  that  were 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  47 

for  me  ordeals  of  one  kind  or  another,  a  splendid  guar- 
antee. He  had  given  me,  simply  by  being  what  he 
was,  an  immense  backing,  had  lent  to  me  social  weight, 
equal  to  weighing  them  all  down.  I  had  had  actually, 
that  night,  a  sensation  of  our  having  tipped  up  their 
side  of  the  scale  so  high  that  their  position  was  almost 
precarious.  He  was  so  clearly  one  of  the  "  great  people." 
I  had  seen  them,  .these  strangers,  come  into  view  with 
their  rather  frightening  array  of  coronets,  not  worn,  but 
nevertheless  obvious,  and  immediately  dwindle  in  his 
presence,  until  I  was  no  longer  afraid. 

He  stood  in  front  of  the  Georgian  fireplace,  his  hands 
clasped  behind  him,  his  head  slightly  bowed,  and  I  sat 
by  an  open  window  waiting  for  him  to  say  something 
and  wondering  what  life  would  be  without  him,  won- 
dering whether  I  wouldn't  spin  about  like  a  ridiculous 
flying  machine  with  no  pilot  and  no  ballast;  as  indeed  I 
all  too  immediately  began  to  do. 

"  Where  the  English  have  an  advantage  over  the 
Americans,  is  in  the  number  of  things  they  can  take  for 
granted." 

When  he  spoke,  I  looked  back  from  the  dim  vista  of 
the  green  park  into  the  large  and  brilliant  room  with 
him  in  the  centre  of  it,  surprised.  A  question  at  once 
presented  itself.  If  the  English  scored  because  of  what 
they  could  take  for  granted,  hadn't  he  scored  above  them 
all  because  of  the  same  thing?  They  had  not  so  taken 
him,  certainly,  but  he,  on  the  contrary,  had  so  accepted 
them,  the  whole  lot  of  them,  bulked  together.  He  had 
surprised  them.  They  had  had  to  adjust  themselves  and 
play  up  to  him.  American  millionaires  they  had,  of 
course,  been  long  accustomed  to,  but  their  more  or  less 
disguised  antics  that  evening  had  proved  to  me  that 


48  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

even  they  had  felt  that  his  being  a  millionaire  was  quite 
incidental  to  his  greatness.  It  was  as  though  they  had 
been  invited  to  meet  at  a  shooting-box  the  best  gun  in 
Scotland,  and  had  all  unprepared  come  upon  the  King. 
I  had  been  watching  him  and  his  effect  on  them,  amused. 
He  had  felt  for  my  sake  that  it  was  necessary  to  talk, 
and  he  had  handed  Aunt  Cora  down  to  dinner  very  gently 
and  gravely,  and  had  proceeded  to  say- six  or  ten  words 
to  her,  six  or  ten  words  that  were  profoundly  the  right 
words.  I  saw  him  looking  at  her  as  from  a  great  distance 
with  that  fine  modesty  of  his,  all  unconscious  of  the 
effect  he  was  producing,  and  that  has  lasted  to  this 
day.  If  I  had  not  fully  appreciated  it  before,  I  did 
finally  that  night  when  she  took  me  in  her  arms  and 
let  me  cry  there  after  I  had  come  back  from  that  last 
trip  to  Iroquois.  I  am  sure  that  the  number  of  times 
when  Aunt  Cora  had  taken  some  one  in  her  arms  could 
be  counted  on  her  thumbs.  It  wasn't  because  of  me  she 
did  it,  but  because  of  him.  It  was  always  because  of  him 
that  she  was  kind  to  me. 

Where  did  he  get  it,  his  grand  simplicity?  How  did 
he  come  to  exist  in  Iroquois?  I  don't  know,  but  I  do 
know  that  what  he  was,  he  was  by  virtue  of  himself. 
Even  had  he  raked  up  the  bits  of  his  family  tree  and 
discovered  it  to  be  rooted  in  illustrious  soil,  that  would 
not  have  explained.  The  American  climate  can  obliterate 
type  in  a  wink  of  time  —  time  I  mean  as  the  evolution 
of  races  is  measured.  What  he  had  learned,  he  had 
learned  with  great  effort.  His  mind  was  full  of  knowl- 
edge carefully  gathered  and  fastidiously  selected.  And 
this  dignity  of  his  manner  was  just  the  perfectly  smooth 
expression  of  his  mind. 

I  cannot  imagine  my  father  discussing  the  subject  of 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  49 

marriage.  It  never  entered  into  his  head  that  there  was 
any  such  subject.  My  mother  was  not  for  him  one  of 
a  world  of  married  women,  she  was  the  centre  of  the 
universe.  That  was  all.  It  would  have  been  impossible 
for  him  to  analyse  their  relationship.  There  was  nothing 
to  analyse. 

Domestic  bliss  is  a  horrid  phrase  and  a  dreadful  mis- 
statement  as  far  as  they  were  concerned.  If  two  highly 
organized  human  beings  care  enough  for  each  other  to 
live  unashamed  and  without  subterfuge  full  in  the  light 
of  each  other's  eyes,  for  a  period  of  years,  such  an 
experience  can  hardly  be  described  with  an  epithet.  My 
father  and  mother  were  nervous  about  each  other.  There 
was  friction  sometimes,  there  were  troubles,  there  were 
periods  of  strain  which  were  evident  even  to  me.  When 
he  lost  his  temper  we  were  terrified.  I  can't  remember 
his  ever  being  actually  angry  with  her,  but  it  seemed 
as  though  she  were  the  one  who  suffered  most  wherever 
his  anger  was  directed.  I  remember  one  night  his  going 
up  the  stairs  two  steps  at  a  time  with  a  cane  in  his 
hand.  Dick  was  the  offender  upstairs.  My  mother 
stood  at  the  bottom,  trembling,  her  face  white,  her  hands 
twisted  together.  Once  I  dashed  into  her  boudoir  to 
find  her  standing  crying  with  his  arms  about  her.  "  I 
can't  bear  it,  John  dear,  when  you  do.  I  can't  bear  it," 
and  he  was  comforting  and  reassuring  her.  I  don't, 
of  course,  know  what  it  was  about,  but  I  knew  then 
that  she  demanded  a  great  deal  of  him,  expected  him 
always  to  be  wonderful  to  her,  and  would  never  let 
.their  relationship  lapse  into  anything  second-rate.  They 
(had  entered  very  seriously  upon  the  supreme  social 
I  adventure,  abandoned  or  never  attempted  by  ninety- 
nine  people  out  of  a  hundred  because  it  is  too  strenuous. 


50  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

He  was  in  love  with  her  always  until  she  died,  in  love 
with  her  as  he  had  been  at  the  beginning,  with  the  same 
shyness  and  the  same  reverence. 

And  we  were  at  the  same  time  very  important  to 
them,  my  brothers,  I  mean,  and  myself.  We  were 
allowed  to  absorb  their  time,  limit  their  activities,  and 
destroy  their  social  life.  Probably  they  didn't  care  for 
the  social  life  of  Iroquois  —  at  any  rate  they  gave  it  up 
in  great  measure  for  us. 

The  house  was  overrun  with  us.  A  hundred  and  fifty 
white  mice  lived  in  a  village  of  starch  boxes  in  the 
attic.  Electric  wire  for  strange  purposes  intersected 
under  every  rug  and  carpet.  School  books  were  piled 
about  in  the  library,  bicycles  and  skates  and  baseball 
bats  and  boxing-gloves  filled  the  cloak-room  under  the 
stairs,  a  punching  bag  was  suspended  from  the  ceiling 
in  the  upstairs  hall,  dogs  inhabited  the  basement  and 
the  back  yard.  It  took  an  army  of  servants  to  clean 
up  after  us,  an  army  of  carefully  selected  servants  with 
patience  and  a  sense  of  humour.  We  must  have  been 
a  frightful  nuisance,  but  we  weren't  told  so,  and  were 
never  handed  over  to  governesses  or  tutors  for  disci- 
plining. 

My  father  and  mother  were  in  the  habit  of  dining  with 
us  at  seven  o'clock,  and  if  three  of  our  four  pairs 
of  hands  looked  grimy  against  the  white  damask  cloth, 
no  one  seemed  to  mind,  unless  it  was  myself.  I  became 
in  the  evening,  with  the  donning  of  my  white  dress  and 
patent-leather  pumps,  a  lady,  who  turned  up  her  nose 
disdainfully  at  the  sight  of  rapid  shovelling  forks. 

It  was  not  that  the  boys  were  unwashed.  Their  good- 
will and  the  respect  which  dinner  commanded  were  evi- 
denced by  clean  collars,  wet  hair,  slicked  down  from  a 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  51 

middle  parting,  and  shining  faces.  Their  hands  were  raw 
with  scrubbing,  pumice-stone  and  cornmeal  were  often  re- 
sorted to  when  soap  failed,  and  more  than  this  proof  of  a 
sincere  purpose  my  mother  did  not  demand.  My  mother 
was  wise,  she  understood  boys.  It  was  a  constant  source 
of  wonderment  to  me  that  she,  with  all  her  exquisite 
elegance  and  her  extreme  moral  fervour,  could  smile 
upon  black  finger-nails  and  the  noisy  supping  of  soup. 
She  could  accept  a  black  eye  with  a  smile  and  no  ques- 
tions asked,  but  a  rude  word  or  a  fib  would  involve 
serious  consequences,  unhappiness  to  her  and  to  us 
because  of  her,  so  that  our  remorse  was  usually  mixed 
with,  if  not  actually  caused  by,  our  sympathy  with  her 
pain. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this  freedom  allowed  to  us,  a 
certain  formality  prevailed  in  the  evenings.  My  father 
had  a  taste  for  ceremony  that  did  not  entirely  give  way 
to  the  demands  of  a  boisterous  family.  He  invariably 
dressed  for  dinner,  an  unusual  thing  in  the  bosom  of 
an  Iroquois  family.  The  meal,  served  with  unnoticeable 
skill  by  two  waitresses  in  stiff  white  caps  and  aprons, 
was  plain,  but  complete  and  perfect  of  its  kind.  The 
cut-glass  tumblers  were  filled  with  ice-water  that  made 
a  musical  clinking  sound  as  it  came  out  of  the  heavy 
silver  pitcher;  the  bread  was  cut  in  small  cubes,  and 
there  were  olives  with  the  soup.  No  wine  was  served, 
and  my  father  carved  the  roast  himself,  dealing  out 
second  and  third  helpings  with  a  detached  skill  and  lib- 
erality. 

My  mother  was  a  beautiful  woman.  Her  friends  used 
to  look  me  over  critically,  shake  their  heads  encouragingly 
and  say :  "  No,  my  dear,  you'll  never  be  the  beauty 
your  mother  was."  My  looks  have  always  been  a  subject 


52  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

for  controversy,  but  about  my  mother's  there  was  never 
any  doubt.  Every  one  admitted  instantly,  at  first  sight, 
once  and  for  all,  that  she  was  exquisite.  She  was  as 
clear  and  definite  and  shining  as  though  made  out  of 
mother-of-pearl.  There  was  no  flaw  in  the  line  of  her 
nose  or  her  arched  eye-brow,  or  her  low  forehead  with 
its  delicately  defined  widow's  peak  of  dense  auburn  hair. 
And  on  her  face  there  was  sometimes  a  peculiar  radiance 
that  would  have  marked  her  out  from  all  other  women, 
even  had  she  been  plain.  I  know  now  what  radiance 
meant.  It  meant  conflict.  It  was  a  costly  thing,  that 
radiance  on  her  face.  It  was  as  costly  as  diamonds. 
It  had  cost  endless  hours  of  suffering  and  prayer.  It 
was  the  witness  of  a  human  mind  that  willed  to  do 
God's  will.  My  German  governess  once  said  to  me  about 
my  mother :  "  Sie  arbeitet  so  an  ihre  Seele."  It  was 
true.  My  mother  laboured  endlessly  for  the  perfecting 
of  her  soul,  laboured  in  prayer,  in  fasting,  in  deeds  of 
charity.  And  this  radiance  that  used  to  light  up  her 
face  frightened  me  because  I  knew  what  it  meant,  and 
I  knew  how  terribly  hard  it  would  be  for  me  to  attain 
it.  Secretly  I  longed  to  be  like  her,  and  rebelled  against 
the  awful  effort  it  involved. 

Of  course  we  didn't  understand  her.  She  looked 
fragile  and  luxurious  like  a  hot-house  flower.  To  please 
my  father  she  dressed  in  rich  brocades  and  old  lace. 
At  a  casual  glance,  she  looked  as  though  she  never  read 
the  Bible  or  said  her  prayers,  as  though  she  never  lifted 
a  pink  tapering  finger  to  discipline  those  noisy  bursting 
sons  who  adored  her.  When  we  looked  at  her  frail, 
richly-clad  figure,  at  her  gleaming  auburn  hair,  and  her 
large,  brown,  wistful  eyes,  we  were  moved  to  a  kind 
of  protective  adoration.  We  wanted  to  fondle  and  kiss 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  53 

and  purr  over  her,  and  often,  if  she  were  not  exercised 
about  the  salvation  of  our  souls,  she  allowed  us  to  make 
demonstrations  of  affection,  drinking  in  our  kisses  and 
murmured  terms  of  endearment,  thirstily,  as  a  flower 
drinks  up  rain.  I  seem  to  remember  her  as  two  distinct 
people ;  one,  a  lovely  shimmering  creature  turning  a  rapt 
face  of  maternal  delight  to  her  children  for  their  kisses, 
and  another,  a  stern  preceptor,  struggling  against  the 
seen  and  unseen  powers  of  evil. 

It  is  inconceivable  to  me  now  that  instead  of  melting 
me,  the  tears  that  she  shed  over  me  only  hardened  my 
heart.  I  cannot  explain  the  antagonism  aroused  in  me 
by  her  religion,  unless  it  was  the  extreme  vulgarity  of 
the  God  worshipped  in  the  Ebenezer  Sprott  Church. 
My  mother's  God  was  not  vulgar,  I  know  that  now ;  but 
she  had  perforce  to  take  us  to  church.  She  was  afraid 
to  trust  herself  with  our  spiritual  upbringing.  I  am 
sure  if  it  had  not  been  for  all  those  tumultuous  prayer 
meetings  and  shouting  sermons  and  voluptuous  hymns 
that  I  should  have  understood  my  mother  better.  The 
atmosphere  of  that  church  was  thick  as  a  fog  —  it 
wrapped  her  from  me  —  I  saw  her  midst  those  revivalists, 
distorted,  and  I  set  my  teeth  and  was  disobedient  because 
I  was  afraid  of  them. 

Nevertheless,  we  were  affected  by  her  religious  spirit. 
We  were  confused  and  stirred  up  and  full  of  belief  in 
Jesus  Christ  as  our  Saviour.  How  could  we  help 
believing  ?  He  was  more  talked  about  by  her,  and  adored 
and  more  explicitly  obeyed  than  any  one  in  the  world. 
Everything  we  did  or  did  not  do  was  prayed  over  — 
that  is,  everything  that  had  a  moral  significance  —  and  it 
seems  to  me,  looking  back,  that  the  whole  of  life,  aside 
from  actual  play  and  study,  was  made  up  of  moral  values. 


54  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  suppose  that's  not  true.  It  couldn't  have  been.  We 
had  long  summers  en  famille  camping  in  the  woods  of 
Canada,  cruising  up  the  Atlantic  coast,  or  riding  across 
the  western  plains  of  Dakota  or  Arizona,  where  our 
interest  was  centred  on  things  geographical,  geological, 
or  culinary.  I  can  remember  my  mother  making  coffee 
over  a  camp  fire,  her  skirt  pinned  up  about  her  waist, 
her  face  sunburned  and  laughing.  I  can  remember  her, 
too,  in  khaki  riding-breeches  on  a  horse,  climbing  a 
mountain-side  or  racing  across  a  field.  We  seemed  to 
have  left  our  sins  and  God  behind  us  for  the  summer 
holidays,  which  only  proves  my  contention  that  the 
Ebenezer  Sprott  Church  was  the  real  difficulty. 

If  my  mother  had  lived  longer  there  would  no  doubt 
have  been  trouble  over  the  question  of  religion,  and  of 
all  the  many  rights  and  wrongs  that  seemed  for  her  to 
be  bound  up  in  religious  truth,  such  as  drinking  wine, 
and  smoking,  and  going  to  the  theatre,  and  having  one's 
hair  curled.  I  remember  once  having  put  my  hair  up 
in  curl-papers  at  night.  I  came  shame-facedly  to  break- 
fast with  what  must  have  been  a  very  curious  crown 
of  ringlets;  but  I  was  not  made  to  feel  that  it  was  ugly 
and  ridiculous;  I  was  made  to  feel  that  it  was  wicked. 
I  came  away  from  her  boudoir  with  a  feeling  that  God 
was  angry  with  me,  and  dipped  my  head  into  the  wash- 
basin with  a  distinct  sense  of  expiation.  It  sounds  funny, 
no  doubt,  but  even  nowadays  in  America  little  matters 
of  taste  are  continually  being  fought  out  as  great  moral 
issues.  Had  she  lived  longer,  something  must  have  hap- 
pened either  to  change  her,  or  to  make  her  unhappy; 
but  as  it  was,  she  died,  leaving  us  only  half  out  of 
childhood,  and  I  remember  her  most  as  our  delight  and 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  55 

our  wonder,  as  the  light  in  the  tower  of  that  fine  home 
of  which  my  father  was  the  foundation. 

After  dinner  as  a  rule  my  mother  went  upstairs  and 
the  rest  of  us  into  the  library.  The  boys  settled  down 
to  their  books  and  I  played  for  my  father  while  he 
smoked  his  cigar.  While  I  played  the  piano  I  thought 
of  him,  of  the  thousands  of  engines  and  dynamos  he 
made,  and  of  how  little  of  it  all  seemed  to  interest  him. 
I  had  been  down  with  him  often  to  the  works  and 
watched  the  men  pouring  molten  steel  into  smooth,  hard 
moulds  of  sand.  The  foundry  always  suggested  to  me 
a  picture  of  hell;  I  felt  a  kind  of  horrid  delight  in  the 
noise  and  roar  of  its  blazing  furnaces.  My  father  seemed 
not  to  feel  it  at  all.  Once  it  must  have  thrilled  him,  but 
now  he  didn't  care.  He  was  withdrawing  more  and  more 
from  all  activity.  I  felt,  strangely,  the  inertia  that 
seemed  to  bear  down  on  him  now  in  that  rich  still  lamp- 
light. 

The  library  was  a  long  room  lined  with  books,  hundreds 
of  books  about  history,  and  archaeology,  and  philosophy. 
Books  in  German  and  French,  scientific  treatises  and 
books  on  art. 

Wide  doors  opened  into  the  drawing-room  and  hall, 
the  polished  floor  was  strewn  with  faded  Persian  rugs, 
pictures  by  Corot,  and  Rousseau,  and  Daubigny,  and 
a  number  of  Dutchmen,  and  some  old  Italians,  covered 
the  wall.  On  the  tables  stood  lamps,  the  Tiffany  glass 
shades  in  rich  crimsons,  and  blues,  and  golds  looking  like 
large  luminous  flowers. 

Jerry  and  Bud  sat  by  a  lamp  studying,  their  books 
and  pads  of  paper  spread  on  the  table.  A  wood  fire 
was  lighted  in  the  fireplace,  and  the  charred  logs  sent 
out  a  faint  pungent  smell. 


56  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Bud  always  got  into  trouble.  "  Hang  it ! "  he  would 
mutter,  biting  his  pencil.  "  This  is  the  very  deuce !  " 

I  would  leave  the  piano  with  an  unsatisfied  stirred- 
up  feeling  when  my  father  had  almost  finished  his  cigar. 
He  often  looked  up  as  I  came  to  him,  opening  his  arms, 
and  I  clung  to  him  a  moment. 

"  Thank  you,  Joan  darling,"  he  said.  I  kissed  the 
lines  at  the  corner  of  his  eyes,  so  stern,  and  grave,  and 
aloof  that  the  tender  words  always  thrilled  me  un- 
expectedly. 

"  Father,  I  can't  get  at  it."  Bud's  hair  was  rumpled 
with  despair  by  this  time. 

"  Let  me  see." 

"  It's  quadratic  equations." 

My  father  moved  to  the  light.  He  sat  down  with 
the  paper  on  his  knee,  the  pencil  in  one  hand,  his  cigar 
in  the  other.  Bud  knelt  beside  the  chair  with  the  algebra 
book.  He  began  to  explain. 

I  remember  standing  by  the  window  on  a  windy  winter 
night.  I  pressed  my  face  against  the  window-pane.  I 
could  see  the  wind  flying  by  in  the  dark.  The  drive  was 
deserted.  Beyond  the  great  circle  of  light  made  by 
an  arc  light,  I  could  catch  the  glint  of  spray  dashing  up 
over  the  wall  that  bordered  the  drive.  The  lake  was 
only  fifty  yards  away.  It  was  very  cold,  but  not  cold 
enough  to  freeze  over.  Blocks  of  ice  that  one  could  not 
see  were  grinding  and  floundering  about  on  the  water. 
A  solitary  carriage  passed,  its  lights  moving  swiftly. 
The  coachman,  wrapped  in  furs,  was  bent  forward  against 
the  wind.  I  wished  there  were  streams  and  streams 
of  carriages  as  there  were  in  New  York  on  Fifth 
Avenue. 

Jroquois  had  nearly  as  many  fine  buildings  and  beau- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  57 

tiful  houses,  and  much  more  beautiful  parks,  and  its 
boulevards  were  empty.  What  made  New  York  so 
exciting  were  the  crowds  and  crowds  of  beautiful  women 
and  prancing  horses,  and  proud  coachmen,  and  won- 
derful, luxurious  hotels  teeming  with  people  all  having 
a  good  time.  Here  there  were  so  few  people  of  our 
kind,  and  such  crowds  of  others.  I  didn't  know  whom 
I  meant  by  "  our  kind,"  but  the  sprawling  foreign  throngs 
in  the  parks  on  Sundays  and  the  miles  of  avenue  where 
Jews  and  Germans  had  built  big  stone  houses,  and  the 
vast  desert  of  the  south  side  where  thousands  of  people 
lived  in  little  flats,  depressed  me.  My  German  gov- 
erness's mother  had  lived  thirty  years  in  Iroquois  and 
didn't  speak  a  word  of  English.  The  city  didn't  really 
belong  to  us,  to  people  like  my  father  at  all. 

The  window-pane  kept  clouding  over  with  my  breath. 
It  was  snowing,  and  the  wind  drove  the  snow-flakes  by 
through  the  lamplight  in  great  horizontal  streaks.  I 
loved  the  wind,  and  the  dark,  and  the  waves  booming, 
but  it  all  made  me  sad. 

I  stood  a  long  time  staring  out.  Behind  me  sounded 
my  father's  voice :  "  x  equals  the  square  root  of,"  and 
Bud  murmuring  eagerly.  Presently  Fraulein's  timid  note 
of  summons  floated  down  the  hall.  Nine  o'clock,  bed- 
time. I  went  up  the  stairs  slowly,  sliding  my  hand  along 
the  dark  polished  rail.  Dick  was  coming  down,  his 
face  set  and  gloomy.  He  had  been  with  my  mother, 
and  confessed  about  the  fight  with  the  "  Micks."  I  had 
an  intense  consciousness  of  Dick,  of  all  my  brothers. 
Their  lives  invaded  mine  disconcertingly.  They  teased 
me  and  angered  me  and  professed  to  despise  me,  and 
all  the  same  confided  in  me,  and  we  were  all  fiercely  loyal 
to  each  other. 


58  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

The  sight  of  my  mother  on  the  sofa  in  the  boudoir 
made  me  realize  suddenly  that  my  stocking  was  sticking 
to  a  round  skinned  place  on  my  knee.  My  mother  was 
looking  very  white  and  her  brow  was  puckered ;  she  had 
begun  the  dictation  of  a  letter  to  Fraulein,  whose  meek 
head  was  bowed  over  the  desk. 

"  Look,"  said  I,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  sofa  and 
pulling  up  the  hem  of  my  dress.  The  stocking  wouldn't 
come  down.  It  was  wet  and  bloody. 

"  Oh,"  said  mother.  "  Take  care ;  we'll  have  to  soak 
it  off.  Fraulein,  the  absorbent  cotton,  please,  and  the 
adhesive  plaster,  boracic  acid  too,  and  a  bowl  of  warm 
water.  How  did  you  do  it,  Joan  ? "  My  mother  was 
only  mildly  interested.  The  thing  happened  continually. 

"  Going  over  a  wall,  I  came  down  on  my  knees  on 
the  sidewalk."  I  kept  pulling  and  wincing  —  at  last 
I  ripped  the  stocking  off,  carrying  with  it  a  patch  of 
skin  and  leaving  a  raw,  bleeding  place  as  big  as  a  dollar, 
which  I  surveyed  proudly.  It  was  rather  fun  having 
my  mother  bandage  it,  if  only  the  boracic  acid  didn't  sting 
so.  "  It's  as  bad  a  place  as  Jerry's,  anyhow." 

"  You  weren't  in  that  fight,  Joan  ?  "  asked  my  mother. 

*'  No,  I  watched." 

*'  It  won't  do,  dear,  for  you  to  play  with  those  rough 
boys,  and  you're  getting  too  big  to  climb  walls." 

"  Well,  I  hate  playing  with  girls  —  all  except  Louise 
and  Phyllis." 

My  mother  wound  the  bandage  deftly. 

"  I  mean  those  other  boys." 

"Oh,  the  'Micks.'  We  don't  play  with  them.  We 
only  fight.  Patrick  O'Brien's " 

"  Yes,  Patrick  O'Brien.  I've  told  Dick  he's  to  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  him  even  with  his  fists." 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  59 

"Why?" 

"  They're  not  nice  people.  His  father's  a  political  boss 
and  a  brewer;  they  run  most  of  the  saloons  on  the  west 
side  in  the  Red  Light  District ;  terrible  places  where  they 
entice  young  girls." 

"  Ach,  so-so,"  murmured  Fraulein.  "  It  is  true,  I 
know." 

"  How  do  you  mean  entice  them  ?  And  what  for  ?  " 
My  curiosity  was  aroused.  "  What  do  they  do  with  them 
—  do  you  mean  rob  them  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  mean  rob  them." 

My  mother's  face  took  on  a  strange  expression.  She 
seemed  about  to  make  an  announcement.  I  waited 
breathlessly.  Here  was  something  I  didn't  understand. 
Something  dreadful  and  mysterious  was  in  my  mother's 
mind,  and  I  was  afraid  to  learn.  Suddenly  I  blushed, 
and  felt  queer  and  uncomfortable.  I  didn't  know  why. 
Vaguely  I  was  aware  of  something  horrid,  somewhere. 
It  made  me  rather  sick,  yet  the  words  "  Red  Light 
District "  were  alluring.  I  fiddled  nervously  with  the 
bandage  and  became  aware  that  I  was  angry  with  my 
mother  for  looking  like  that  —  so  knowing.  Why  should 
she?  Why  should  she? 

But  she  changed  her  mind;  she  would  preserve  a 
little  longer  her  child's  ignorance.  She  drew  me  to  her, 
guessing  something  of  the  tumult  in  my  heart. 

"  Never  mind  how,  darling,  or  what  for.  There  are 
things  you  don't  understand  yet."  Her  white  hand 
stroked  my  head  affectionately,  her  voice  had  a  sup- 
pressed, and,  to  me,  a  suffocating  sweetness.  It  sug- 
gested so  much  —  too  much  of  suffering  and  under- 
standing. 

I  pulled  away.     "  I  don't  want  to  know.    Yes,  I  do. 


60  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

No,  I  don't,"  I  said  to  myself.  I  stared  at  my  mother 
inimically.  What  I  could  not  bear  was  the  feeling  that 
she  knew  everything,  everything  that  was  going  on  in 
my  own  heart.  I  was  afraid  that  if  she  smiled  at  me 
any  more  like  that,  I  should  blurt  it  all  out,  all  about 
Jim  Van  Orden  and  my  foolish  dreams  and  everything, 
so  I  scowled  and  turned  my  back,  pretending  to  be  fasten- 
ing my  stocking.  Why  Jim  should  come  into  it  I  didn't 
know.  With  my  back  turned  I  felt  my  mother  stiffen, 
and  expected  the  serious  tone  of  her  voice  when  she 
spoke  again. 

"  And  I've  told  Dick,  if  you're  out  with  your  brothers, 
he  must  take  care  of  you." 

"  He  won't  like  that.     Confound  it !  " 

"  Joan ! " 

"  Well,  he  won't,  and  I  can  take  care  of  myself." 

"  It's  not  safe.  Mrs.  Chadwkk's  child  has  been  kid- 
napped." 

"  I'd  like  to  see  any  one  kidnap  me." 

"  That  is  my  command,  Joan.  You're  not  to  go  out 
without  Fraulein  unless  Dick  will  take  the  responsibility. 
Kiss  me  good-night ;  and,  darling,  I  want  you  to  tell  God 
about  the  fight  this  afternoon." 

"  Why  should  I  ?    I  don't  think  He'd  care  a  snap." 

"Joan!" 

"  Well,  I  don't.  It's  over  now.  Besides,  whenever  I 
get  down  on  my  knees  I  get  so  sleepy.  I'm  sick  of 
praying." 

"Joan!" 

"  Well,  I  am.  Why  can't  I  pray  in  bed,  where  it's 
warm  ?  " 

"  It  says  in  the  Bible,  every  knee  shall  bow.  Daniel 
knelt  three  times  a  day." 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  61 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  petulantly ;  "  but,"  with  a  brilliant 
inspiration,  "  I  can't  tonight,  anyhow,  on  this  knee." 
As  I  turned  with  a  fling  toward  the  door  to  escape, 
I  caught  an  expression  of  intense  pain  on  my  mother's 
face.  I  stopped  with  my  back  to  her  and  heard  her 
draw  a  long  shivering  breath.  My  heart  smote  me  —  I 
did  love  her.  All  the  same  I  was  terrified  at  what  was 
coming. 

"  Joan,"  her  voice  was  the  voice  of  another  woman  — 
small,  cold,  vibrating  —  I  knew  it  so  well.  It  always 
changed  like  this  when  she  was  about  to  struggle  for 
my  soul.  It  sounded  as  though  she  herself  had  gone 
into  a  trance  and  was  possessed  of  an  alien  spirit.  I 
felt  a  dead  sickening  weight  in  the  middle  of  me  some- 
where. 

"  Joan,  kneel  down  with  me  now  and  ask  God  to 
forgive  you.  Let  us  implore  the  Holy  Spirit  to  take 
possession  of  you  more  fully." 

It  was  impossible  to  refuse.  I  sank  on  my  knees 
in  a  tumult  of  rebellious  worship,  shame  and  emotional 
disgust  mingling  with  fear  of  the  Almighty.  I  was  so 
excited  that  I  could  not  utter  a  word,  had  I  wanted  to ; 
but  I  listened  to  my  mother's  voice,  that  was  like  a 
voice  of  a  medium,  and  I  imagined  another  voice,  the 
voice  of  God,  telling  me  to  drive  the  devil  out  of  my 
heart,  and  I  refused.  I  have  never  felt  so  wicked  as 
I  felt  that  evening  kneeling  beside  my  mother  in  her 
boudoir. 

Gradually  as  she  went  on  praying  I  grew  calmer.  I 
steeled  myself  against  the  waves  of  emotion  that  flowed 
from  her,  and  as  it  seemed  from  the  heart  of  the  un- 
seen. By  the  time  she  was  finished  I  was  capable  of 
dissimulating.  I  smiled  sweetly,  said  I  was  sorry,  kissed 


62  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

her  good-night  and  fled  to  my  room,  where  I  burst  into 
tears. 

And  I  dreamed  a  terrible  dream  about  the  Rev. 
Ebenezer  Sprott  coming  into  the  schoolroom  and  kissing 
me,  with  a  dirty  Bible  in  his  hand  open  at  the  story  of 
the  woman  who  was  taken  in  adultery  to  the  Red  Light 
District. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

THERE  was  something  reckless  and  knowing 
about  Jim  that  made  me  unhappy.  Sometimes 
I  felt  that  he  was  wicked,  and  this  made  him 
the  more  fascinating,  just  as  his  mother's  wickedness 
that  we  heard  of  in  our  childish  world,  made  her  seem  the 
most  romantic  creature  on  earth. 

It  must  have  been  the  gossip  about  Jim's  parents  that 
made  me  pounce  upon  and  fasten  on  to  the  word 
"  adultery."  I  found  it  in  the  Bible  and  learned  that 
people  were  stoned  for  it,  and  looked  it  up  in  the  dic- 
tionary. It  was  around  that  word  that  sin  and  romance 
unfolded  itself,  around  a  word  that  for  years  filled  me 
with  the  horror  of  St.  Paul. 

Because  Mrs.  Harry  Van  Orden  always  seemed  to 
me  the  most  fascinating  creature  in  the  world,  immor- 
ality, which  I  connected  peculiarly  with  her,  began  by 
appearing  to  my  mind  at  the  same  time  both  horrifying 
and  alluring.  She  was  rather  Spanish-looking,  it  seemed 
to  me,  tall  and  dark  with  a  fierce  repose  and  pride,  an 
unnaturally  restrained  vitality  that  made  her  voice  hoarse 
and  her  movements  dramatic.  Her  face  was  thin  and 
sallow,  with  long  flashing  eyes  and  white  pointed  teeth. 
I  used  to  watch  her  breathlessly  when  she  passed  up 
the  drive,  wrapped  in  furs,  slanting  her  long,  narrow 
figure  against  the  wind;  watched  her  more  breathlessly 
because  I  had  heard  Louise's  mother  say  to  some  one  that 

63 


64  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Mrs.  Harry  Van  Orden  was  getting  into  trouble.  No 
sooner  had  I  heard  this  than  I  was  consumed  with 
longing  to  get  into  trouble  like  Mrs.  Van  Orden.  What 
exciting  beautiful  trouble  that  would  be !  Sometimes 
at  the  skating  rink  she  smiled  at  me,  her  sidelong  smile, 
as  she  floated  across  the  ice  with  a  certain  big  man, 
Mr.  Sweney.  And  gradually  I  came  to  connect  him  with 
her  trouble;  also  the  fact  that  Mr.  Van  Orden  drank. 
No  wonder,  with  such  mysterious  complications  in  his 
family,  Jim  was  beyond  me  in  experience. 

Then  things  came  to  a  climax.  The  word  "  divorce  " 
slipped  about  in  and  out  of  adult  conversation.  We  were 
forbidden  to  go  home  with  Jim  to  his  house  any  more, 
and  Jim  refused  to  come  to  ours.  All  our  good  times 
seemed  to  vanish  suddenly.  I  suppose  the  break-up  of 
the  "  Hot  Push  "  wasn't  sudden  in  reality.  It  must  have 
taken  Mr.  Van  Orden  weeks,  even  months,  to  work 
himself  up  to  the  divorce.  I  imagine  that  we  merely  grew 
up  in  accelerated  spasms  that  took  about  three  months 
and  found  ourselves,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  self- 
conscious,  and  arrayed  against  one  another.  I  of  course 
didn't  understand  the  attitude  of  society  towards  the 
Van  Ordens  at  the  time  but  looking  back  it  is  clear 
enough. 

Drunkenness  was  a  specially  marked  sin  in  Iroquois. 
So  militant  was  the  Church  against  it  that  among  a  large 
section  of  the  population  the  drinking  of  wine  even  in 
moderation  was  sinful.  The  attitude  of  the  smart  set 
toward  this  subject  was  self-conscious,  just  as  its  attitude 
toward  the  larger  inclusive  subject  of  religion  was  self- 
conscious.  Society  was  definitely  irreligious,  but  it  was 
irreligious  with  a  bad  conscience.  It  entertained  on 
Sunday  with  an  air  of  bravado,  and  it  was  exceedingly 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  65 

uncomfortable  at  the  mention  of  God's  name.  The  same 
with  drink.  Iroquois  society  had  very  definite  ideas  about 
drink.  It  remembered  its  Puritan  ancestors  on  the  one 
hand  and  emulated  its  glittering  idols  across  the  Atlantic 
on  the  other ;  and  between  the  two  it  preserved  a  rigid 
countenance  towards  alcohol.  It  had  wine  upon  its  tables 
at  dinner-parties,  but  excepting  these  ornamental  events, 
the  very  expensive  wine-glasses  were  kept  locked  in 
cabinets.  Hostesses  served  wine  with  more  or  less  sang- 
froid. She  who  could  most  successfully  make  champagne 
appear  to  be  a  matter  of  course  was  the  most  polished 
society  woman  of  the  lot.  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  was 
this  woman.  No  one  could  insinuate  that  to  her,  the 
three  different  liqueurs  passed  by  her  butler  after  dinner 
constituted  a  conscious  triumph  over  the  ghost  of  her 
grandmother. 

Louise's  mother  was  the  most  worldly  woman  we  had 
in  Iroquois.  She  could  carry  off  anything.  She  had 
a  genius  for  style.  Even  her  features  were  stylish,  and 
her  smart  face,  that  always  seemed  somehow  absolutely 
a  la  mode,  covered  completely  the  mechanism  of  her 
principles.  Nevertheless,  she  had  principles  and  a  horror 
of  drunkenness,  a  horror  even  of  drinking  when  manners 
did  not  demand  it. 

Jim's  father  drank.  He  was  a  living  social  miracle, 
not  only  because  of  his  physical  well-being  —  he  was 
an  exceedingly  handsome  man  —  but  because  he  had  van- 
quished the  puritanism  of  society.  He  had  created  for 
himself  a  special  dispensation.  Because  of  his  inex- 
tinguishable charm,  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  and  the 
rest  of  society  made  excuses  for  him,  conjured  up  a 
new  convention.  They  invited  him  to  dinner  repeatedly, 
out  of  the  kindness  of  their  hearts,  and  with  each  of 


66  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

these  acts  of  charity,  they  triumphed  afresh  in  the  fact 
that  he  never  disgraced  them,  and  was  always  a  gentle- 
man as  they  understood  a  gentleman  in  spite  of  the 
champagne. 

Drunkenness  is  a  sin,  but  not  an  unpardonable  sin; 
at  least,  Harry  Van  Orden  defeated  its  consequences 
for  a  time;  but  adultery  is  unpardonable.  Mrs.  Van 
Orden  achieved  no  social  miracle.  She  succumbed.  She 
made  it  impossible  for  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  to  be  gracious 
to  poor  Harry.  She  had  been  so  inconceivably  rash 
that  no  one  had  any  doubt  at  all  that  she  would  be 
divorced,  so  she  had  to  be  dropped  and  her  husband 
with  her  for  the  time  being.  A  man  couldn't  be  invited 
to  dinner  without  his  wife,  even  an  unfaithful  wife. 

And,  of  course,  the  more  they  forgave  him,  the  less 
they  forgave  her.  Indeed,  all  their  past  forgiveness 
was  piled  up  against  her.  Though  the  knowledge  of 
her  offence  was  new,  they  were  sure  the  lurid  fact  was 
old,  and  if  of  long  standing,  then  it  was  the  real  cause 
of  his  unfortunate  habit,  and  they  had  been  condoning 
what  they  thought  one  of  the  natural  weaknesses  of 
his  fascinating  temperament,  when  it  really  was  all  the 
time  her  fault.  They  were  sure  now  that  they  had 
never  liked  or  trusted  her.  There  had  always  been  some- 
thing dark  and  not  quite  nice  about  her. 

Then  arose  the  question:  What  would  become  of  the 
boy,  who  was  the  living  image  of  his  father?  Its 
maternal  instinct  made  society  shiver.  Society  was,  after 
all,  entirely  made  up  of  mothers.  The  arms  of  these 
were  opened  where  the  faces  of  the  hostesses  were  blank, 
and  it  thus  came  about  that  we,  Louise  included,  were 
still  allowed  to  play  with  Jim,  to  have  him  in  our  homes, 
but  not  to  go  to  his.  And  Jim  for  a  time,  unconscious 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  67 

and  ignorant,  for  his  mother's  lips  were  sealed,  frequented 
houses  long  since  closed  to  her. 

I  only  saw  Jim  and  his  mother  together  once  —  at 
least  I  only  remember  this  once.  It  was  the  night  that 
he  and  Dick  were  carried  out  into  the  lake  on  the 
floating  ice,  and  she  came  to  our  house  to  find  him.  That 
was  the  night,  too,  that  Pat  O'Brien  turned  up  as  their 
saviour.  A  strange  night,  far-reaching  in  its  result.  For 
one  thing,  it  started  off  Pat  on  his  career  toward  the 
Governorship  of  the  State. 

Dick  and  Jim  did  not  despise  Pat.  A  fist  which  gives 
one  a  bloody  nose  or  black  eye,  even  if  it  is  red  and 
raw  and  the  fist  of  a  "  Mick,"  commands  respect.  They 
felt  for  him  a  fierce  animosity  tinged  with  envy.  He 
was  to  them  a  member  of  a  wild  foreign  tribe,  but 
one  who  created  welcome  diversion  in  the  ranks  of  the 
civilized,  and  as  such  an  enemy  he  was  enjoyed  fero- 
ciously. 

They  envied  him  his  dirt  and  his  freedom  and  his 
huge  ugliness,  Jim  especially,  for  Jim  hated  his  own 
personal  appearance.  Never  had  any  ugly  little  girl 
with  snub  nose  and  squinting  eyes  suffered  greater  humil- 
iation than  Jim  suffered  through  the  conviction  that 
he  was  pretty.  He  was  never  really  pretty,  his  forehead 
saved  him  from  that;  but  his  golden  hair  and  deep  blue 
eyes  were  to  him  a  source  of  furious  resentment.  His 
eyes  were  certainly  of  an  extraordinary  dark  blue.  They 
had  a  deep  expression  of  fierce  innocence.  They  had 
still,  when  I  last  saw  him,  and  his  mouth  was  still  the 
same  mouth,  and  he  pulled  it  down  grimly  just  as  he 
used  to  do  in  an  effort  to  spoil  its  curves. 

It  is  extraordinary  how  that  look  in.  his  eyes  remained 
to  deny  the  bitterness  of  his  speech,  to  stir  in  one  feelings 


68  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

of  pity  and  fun  and  tenderness.  And  in  spite  of  him- 
self, his  face  in  manhood  expressed  still  that  absurd 
babyish  sweetness  against  which  his  erratic  passionate 
brain  had  battled  with  such  futile  cruelty.  He  and  the 
devil  together  would  have  murdered  his  innocence  long 
ago  if  they  could  —  that  is  how  he  made  me  feel  at 
the  end. 

Sentimental  complimenting  mothers  used  to  drive  him 
mad.  "  Women  make  me  sick,"  he  would  growl  after 
one  had  been  running  her  ringers  through  his  hair,  and 
women  have  always  made  him  sick.  He  was  happiest 
in  the  old  days  when,  'with  cut  lip,  bulging  eye,  and 
battered  nose,  he  felt  that  his  face  was  as  manly  and 
terrible  as  Pat's.  He  was  small  and  slight,  and  he  envied 
Pat  the  size  of  his  feet,  and  the  bulging  muscles  of  his 
shoulders,  and  the  nonchalant  way  in  which  his  strong 
glistening  teeth  bit  a  cigarette.  To  smoke  a  cigarette, 
not  in  secret,  but  boldly  strolling  along  the  street  with 
one's  hands  in  one's  pockets  —  that  was  to  proclaim 
oneself  a  man.  Also  at  close  quarters  Pat  exhaled  the 
odour  of  beer,  and  Jim  and  Dick  remarked  to  each  other 
curtly  with  bated  breath  that  he  probably  drank. 
These  things,  together  with  the  holes  in  his  stockings, 
suggested  a  degree  of  liberty  at  home  that  was  dazzling. 
Probably  he  never  had  to  go  to  bed  or  church.  Some 
fellows  had  all  the  fun. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  their  admiring  envy,  they 
might  have  gone  on  indefinitely  calling  him  a  "  do'gone 
Mick,"  had  it  not  been  for  that  Friday  night.  On 
Friday  nights  we  were  allowed  to  invite  four  of  our 
friends  to  dinner  and  have  a  "  rough  house  "  afterwards. 
A  rough  house  included  anything  from  hide-and-seek  to 
a  candy-pull  in  the  kitchen.  Dinner  was  served  on 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  69 

Fridays  at  half -past  six,  to  leave  more  time  for  fun 
afterwards;  but  on  this  particular  Friday  Dick  and  Jim 
had  not  turned  up  by  seven  o'clock.  I  had  invited  Louise 
and  Phyllis,  of  course.  Tommy  Dodge  was  there  con- 
soling himself  with  Jerry  and  Bud.  We  were  all 
depressed  by  a  feeling  of  guilt  and  responsibility.  None 
of  us  knew  where  the  other  two  were,  but  we  could 
think  of  half  a  dozen  escapades  in  which  we  might  have 
been  involved,  and  our  lucky  immunity  didn't  console 
us  much. 

"  We  won't  wait  any  longer,  John,"  said  my  mother 
at  last,  moving  toward  the  dining-room.  I  remember 
she  wore  a  sort  of  tea-gown  of  wine-coloured  silk  with 
cascades  of  black  lace  at  her  throat  and  elbows.  There 
was  a  strained  look  on  her  pale  face.  We  followed 
gloomily,  wondering  why  we  weren't  hungry.  There 
was  sure  to  be  vanilla  ice-cream  with  chocolate  sauce. 

Only  Phyllis  seemed  to  be  enjoying  the  excitement 
that  depressed  the  rest  of  us.  Her  light  fluffy  hair 
was  tied  by  a  big  frivolous  bow,  her  cheeks  were  pink, 
and  her  eyes  dancing,  and  she  whispered,  giggling  to 
Tommy. 

At  that  moment  the  door  bell  rang.  Every  one  jumped. 
Edward  ran  to  the  door.  My  mother  turned.  A 
woman's  clear  incisive  voice  spoke.  It  was  Mrs.  Van 
Orden.  She  swept  up  the  steps  of  the  vestibule  and 
stood  in  the  hall.  I  had  never  seen  her  in  our  house 
before,  and  her  presence  seemed  strange,  her  advent 
dramatic.  She  was  followed  by  the  big  man,  Mr.  Sweney, 
who  stood  behind  her,  silently,  during  what  followed. 
Under  her  close  fur  toque  her  small  sallow  face  looked 
proud  and  mysterious.  Her  white  teeth  gleamed  as  her 
thin  curved  lips  smiled  a  short,  nervous  smile.  From 


70  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

the  top  of  her  little  high  head  to  the  curve  of  her  slender 
instep,  she  was  foreign,  alluring,  mysterious.  There 
were  skates  over  her  arm.  She  spoke  quickly. 

"  Please  excuse  me,  Mrs.  Fairfax.  I  knew  you  were 

expecting  Jim,  but  something -"  she  hesitated,  "  I 

wanted  to  make  sure.  Is  he  here  ?  " 

It  was  really  very  curious  her  being  there  in  our 
home  with  that  man.  He,  I  remember,  was  fat,  with 
reddish  eyebrows  and  icicles  melting  on  his  short 
moustache.  Not  at  all  romantic,  I  thought  to  myself.  I 
must  have  known  a  good  deal  about  it  all  by  that  time, 
for  I  mentally  compared  him  to  her  husband,  to  his 
disadvantage.  "  How  can  she  be  thrilled  by  that  fat 
man?"  I  wondered. 

My  father  nodded  to  Mr.  Sweney  and  moved  towards 
her  with  his  rather  formal  courtesy. 

"  No,  he's  not  here,"  he  said. 

Her  face  changed  suddenly  —  quivered  and  grew  still 
again.  "  She  doesn't  look  like  a  mother,  but  she  loves 
Jim,"  I  thought. 

"  I  was  told,"  her  voice  was  harsh  and  clear-cut, 
"  that  some  one  saw  them,  Jim  and  Dick,  going  towards 
the  lake  with  their  skates."  Her  eyes  flashed  from 
one  to  another.  Phyllis  made  a  funny  little  noise  —  a 
noise  of  pleased  and  wicked  excitement.  I  could  have 
choked  her.  My  mother's  face  had  gone  as  white  as 
death.  The  lake  was  forbidden.  Even  when  appar- 
ently frozen  solid  for  miles  out,  the  ice  would  crack  off  in 
great  slabs  and  float  away,  carrying  rash  skaters  with 
it.  I  felt  suddenly  sick.  One  of  our  favourite  games 
had  been  to  go  out  on  the  ice  as  far  as  we  dared.  Each 
one  would  carry  a  brick  which  he  would  throw  ahead 
of  him.  If  the  brick  did  not  go  through  or  show  weak- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  71 

ness  in  the  ice  ahead,  we  would  follow  and  repeat  the 
experiment.  The  one  who  dared  go  farthest  was  the 
hero.  Jim  had  once  gone  nearly  a  mile,  and  I  had 
watched  him,  trembling  with  guilty  admiration.  But 
none  of  us  had  ever  gone  skating,  partly  because  this 
had  been  very  expressly  forbidden,  partly  because  the 
ice  was  really  smoother  at  the  skating  club.  I  had  a 
terrible  picture  of  Jim  and  Dick  carried  out  on  a  slab 
of  ice  along  the  dark  vast  surface  of  the  lake,  through 
the  night  wind.  And  at  the  same  time  that  I  felt  sick 
with  fear,  I  felt  too  a  certain  exultation.  How  romantic 
and  exciting  it  all  was !  And  yet  in  another  corner  of 
my  brain  I  knew  that  I  was  as  bad  as  Phyllis,  whose  thrills 
were  rippling  to  the  surface. 

Then  the  door  bell  rang  again,  and  Mrs.  Van  Orden 
flung  herself  upon  the  door,  but  it  was  a  strange  boy  — 
he  came  in  blinking,  shuffling  his  huge  boots  together, 
his  bright  red  curls  standing  out  grotesquely  about  his 
scowling  face.  It  was  Patrick  O'Brien. 

"  They're  out  on  the  ice,"  he  growled.  "  It's  cracked. 
They're  floating."  His  angry  eyes  fixed  on  my  father. 
"  Better  come  with  me  and  bring  me  a  lantern,  and  a  rope, 
and  a  board.  Ain't  much  time.  Better  git  a  move  on." 
He  kept  rolling  his  torn  cap  round  in  his  bare  hands,  that 
were  cracked  and  bleeding  with  cold.  There  was  some- 
thing rough  and  funny  about  him  that  inspired  confidence, 
as  he  stood  waiting,  his  back  to  Mrs.  Van  Orden's  rigid 
figure. 

"  Better  git  a  move  on,"  he  muttered  again.  His 
bright  speckled  eyes  shifted  from  one  to  another  until 
they  rested  on  Phyllis,  then  his  red  face  turned  a  shade 
redder.  Violently  he  cleared  his  throat  and  was  about 
to  spit,  but  there  was  no  place  fit  to  spit  in.  He  looked 


72  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

about  him  with  growing  animosity.  Rage  and  contempt 
seemed  to  grow  in  his  face.  He  looked  at  his  boots 
from  which  the  snow  was  melting  into  little  puddles. 
"  Damn !  "  he  half  whispered  to  himself,  with  a  fierce, 
shamed  glance  towards  the  dainty  white  figure  of  fluff 
and  ribbon. 

It  seemed  an  age  before  my  father  in  fur  coat  and 
cap,  and  Edward  with  lantern  and  rope,  were  ready,  but 
it  had  not  been  more  than  four  minutes. 

"  Come  on,  then."  Pat  jerked  his  elbow  and  shot 
out  into  the  cold.  The  others  followed.  Mrs.  Van 
Orden  gave  Mr.  Sweney  behind  her  one  glance,  he  nodded 
and  followed  the  others.  The  door  banged.  I  rushed 
to  the  window  and  flattened  my  face  against  it.  The 
lake  was  shrouded  in  darkness.  With  a  shiver  I  turned 
from  the  window  and  ran  to  my  mother  and  knelt  on 
the  floor  beside  her,  clutching  her  hand.  Bud  was 
hanging  over  her  fondling  her  hair.  Louise  and  Phyllis 
sat  at  her  feet  looking  up  into  her  white  face.  At  the 
other  side  of  the  fireplace  Mrs.  Van  Orden  was  seated 
now,  leaning  back,  her  long,  slender  legs  crossed,  one 
slim  foot  swinging  nervously,  while,  through  lowered 
eyelids,  she  surveyed  the  group.  Little  spasms  of  pain 
and  annoyance  passed  over  her  face.  Her  eyes  gleamed 
strangely.  A  cruel  little  smile  parted  her  lips.  Sud- 
denly she  leaned  forward  and  burst  into  violent  tears. 

"  You  have  so  many,"  she  gasped,  "  and  so  much 
besides ;  God,  and  a  mind  at  peace." 

We  stared  petrified.  My  mother  got  up.  "  Go  into 
the  dining-room.  Dinner  is  waiting.  It  may  be  a  long 
time  before  they  come  back.  Joan,  take  my  place  at 
the  table."  We  crept  away  and  sat  round  the  table 
miserably  in  silence  for  a  long  time. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  73 

*'  Mother  doesn't  bow  to  her,"  announced  Louise  at 
last,  tossing  her  head.  How  I  hated  Louise  at  that 
moment. 

My  mind  dwelt  inquisitively  upon  the  two  women 
in  the  hall.  I  never  knew  what  happened.  Perhaps 
in  spite  of  everything,  they  prayed  together  for  the 
safety  of  their  sons.  Mrs.  Van  Orden's  personality,  so 
dark  and  so  magnetic,  is  always  tinged  for  me  with  the 
fear  of  that  ghastly  evening,  and  never  shall  I  forget  the 
way  in  which  she  met  Jim  on  his  return,  the  terrible 
intensity  of  her  extreme  control. 

She  didn't  even  touch  him,  though  her  arms  twitched. 
They  had  started  out  from  her  sides  against  her  will ; 
she  checked  them.  But  he  came  to  her  and  took  hold 
of  her  hand  that  hung  rigid  by  her  side,  and  they  stood 
together  close  for  a  moment,  both  frowning  with  the 
effort  to  deny  the  emotional  and  the  unusual  that  was 
so  instinctive  to  them.  I  suppose  she  must  have  known 
then  that  she  was  going  to  leave  him.  It  was  not  long 
after  this  that  she  bolted  with  the  fat  man. 

We  afterwards  took  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  boys  were  saved.  It  was  not  in  the  nature  of  things 
that  they  should  be  frozen  to  death  or  drowned  in  the 
icy  depths  of  the  lake.  Such  things  happened  in  Iroquois, 
but  not  among  people  that  one  knew.  Nevertheless,  if 
it  had  not  been  for  Patrick  O'Brien,  the  snobbishness  of 
fate  might  have  been  less  obvious. 

Pat  was  a  hero,  and  of  a  sudden  all  the  fierce  ani- 
mosity that  had  been  levelled  against  him  was  turned 
into  friendship.  With  dogged  persistence  Jim  and  Dick 
insisted  on  receiving  him  into  their  homes.  He  had 
disappeared  that  eventful  night,  waiting  for  no  word 
of  thanks  or  farewell,  but  they  met  him  the  following 


74  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Monday  after  school.  He  was  slouching  along  as  always, 
kicking  the  snow  with  the  clumsy  toes  of  his  boots, 
and  chewing  gum  violently.  They  stopped.  He  grunted. 
Embarrassed,  yet  determined  to  be  friends,  Jim  and 
Dick  ranged  alongside.  Dumbly  they  proceeded  down 
the  street  until  they  came  opposite  the  German  bakery. 
Pies  and  "  Kafe  Kuchen "  and  gingerbread  were  dis- 
played in  the  window,  and  Kranz's  round,  rosy  face 
smiled  at  them  through  the  frosted  glass. 

"  Come  on  in,"  said  Dick.  Pat  lurched  in  and  accepted 
a  lemon  pie.  Solemnly  they  proceeded,  eating,  down 
Grant  Street. 

"  My  new  dynamo's  a  peach,"  murmured  Jim. 

"  Gosh !  "  replied  Pat  irrelevantly,  but  somehow  he 
found  himself  within  Jim's  front  door.  Mrs.  Van  Orden 
was  standing  ready  to  go  out. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Pat  ?  "  She  smiled  and  passed  out, 
while  he  pulled  his  hat  from  his  head  in  a  tumult. 

And  once  on  a  Friday  night  he  came  to  dinner  with 
Dick  in  a  clean  collar.  He  said  not  a  word  throughout 
the  meal,  but  shot  terribly  shy  and  angry  glances  at 
the  girls.  And  his  great  hulking  roughness  made  us 
all  suffer  with  the  sense  of  his  discomfort.  After  dinner, 
with  a  last  savage  frown  at  Phyllis,  he  grabbed  up 
his  cap. 

"  I'm  goin' —  naw  —  it's  no  good.  I  hate  girls  and 
all  this  fancy  stuff,"  he  growled  to  Dick  at  the  door, 
and  bolted. 

In  vain  did  they  look  for  him  after  that.  He  was 
not  to  be  found.  At  last  another  "  Mick "  informed 
them,  "  No,  Pat  didn't  come  to  school  no  more." 

Not  for  years,  when  we  had  almost  forgotten  him, 
did  we  find  out.  Dick  found  himself  face  to  face  with 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  75 

him  on  the  baseball  field.  He  was  captain  of  the  Colum- 
bia team.  I  believe  Phyllis  must  have  told  me  that  he 
rushed  home  that  very  night  to  his  father's  room  behind 
the  big  saloon  on  Grant  Street  and  demanded  that  he 
be  allowed  to  go  to  college,  and,  undoubtedly  romantic 
as  it  may  seem,  those  two  glimpses  of  Phyllis  in  white 
and  blue  ribbons  were  his  incentive. 

But  I  started  out  to  tell  you  how,  when  Jim  found  we 
weren't  allowed  to  come  to  his  house  any  more,  he 
refused  to  come  to  us,  and  after  this,  how  Dick  made 
such  a  scene  that  he  was  packed  off  to  boarding  school, 
but,  as  I  say,  I  forget  how  long  it  all  took.  I  only  know 
that  Tommy  Dodge  went  too,  and  then  the  "  Hot  Push  " 
vanished. 


CHAPTER  Six 

THE  affair  of  Phyllis  Day  and  Patrick  O'Brien 
would  make  a  romantic  story.  His  career 
began  when  she  laughed  at  him  with  those 
blue  bows  bobbing  in  her  hair.  His  remarkable  efforts 
to  educate  himself  and  make  money  were  all  because 
of  his  desire  to  possess  her.  Any  one  in  Iroquois  can 
tell  you  all  about  that.  He  was  noisy  about  it  himself. 
He  wasn't  the  kind  of  man  to  hide  his  furious  hunger. 
His  were  direct  methods.  As  a  "  Mick "  he  gave 
innumerable  embryo  gentlemen  black  eyes ;  and  as  a 
man  he  lunged  into  any  soft-spoken  rivals  who  happened 
to  want  her  for  themselves.  He  battered  them  about, 
not  perhaps  with  his  fists,  but  in  a  way  that  left  them 
equally  sore.  It  is  all  romantic,  if  you  look  at  the  mere 
changes  and  happenings.  Compare  his  home  in  Grant 
Street  over  the  saloon  with  the  Venetian  house 
on  the  drive  that  he  has  built  for  her.  The  carvings 
on  its  stone  front  are  copied  straight  from  the  Doge's 
palace.  What  more  could  any  one  want?  However,  no 
one  is  very  much  surprised.  It's  just  the  sort  of  thing 
that  happens  to  people  in  America.  Everybody  knows 
America  is  a  hot-bed  for  romantic  marriages.  Marriage 
is  the  one  gallant  adventure  of  all  well-brought-up  young 
people.  Marriage  for  love  is  not  only  the  dream  of 
youth,  it  is  the  achievement  of  youth,  and  the  divorce 
laws  are  all  of  a  piece  with  it;  but  the  unusual  thing 

76 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  77 

about  Phil's  affair  was  that  she  stood  out  for  so  much 
money.  That  spoils  it  rather.  I'm  afraid  the  romance 
was  all  on  one  side.  Sally  Comstock  was  more  typical. 
She  was  proud  of  marrying  a  poor  man  and  doing  her 
own  cooking.  Phil  consented  when  her  admirer  could 
show  her  a  million  dollars,  not  a  penny  less.  And  the 
curious  thing  about  Pat  is,  that  he  has  gone  just  exactly 
as  far  as  he  wanted,  and  now  refuses  to  go  any  farther. 
He  is  the  Governor  of  the  State,  and  is  going  to  retire 
from  politics  when  that's  over.  He  has  made  a  fortune 
and  bought  her  the  string  of  pearls  that  she  saw  in 
Paris  on  their  honeymoon,  and  he  doesn't  propose  to 
work  himself  to  death  any  more.  He's  going  to  build 
a  house  in  California  and  take  to  farming  or  growing 
grape-fruit  or  something,  and  Phil  has  got  to  go  with 
him.  She  has  no  say  in  the  matter.  One  would  per- 
haps pity  her  if  she  weren't  so  everlastingly  adaptable. 
I  fancy  in  another  couple  of  years  she  will  be  a  contented 
farmer's  wife,  a  domesticated  amazon. 

I  had  never  managed  to  make  up  my  mind  about 
Phyllis  until  that  night  at  Saracens.  She  had  always 
hoodwinked  me,  and  she  does  it  again  now  that  I  am 
made  charitable  by  the  calamities  of  the  war.  She  looked 
to  me  in  that  clairvoyant  moment  a  devil;  but  now  I 
begin  to  feel  that  she  may  be  innocent  of  any  real  knowl- 
edge of  herself.  It  may  be  that  her  cruelty  is  no  more 
real  than  her  affection.  Her  movements  and  her  voice 
are  delicious  and  comic.  Her  beauty  is  full  of  humour. 
And  I  find  it  impossible  now  to  believe  in  a  humorous 
she-devil.  I  prefer  to  believe  that  she  is  just  organically 
wrong  somewhere,  and  that  she  doesn't  know.  She  is 
frigid,  and  I  suppose  she  can't  help  it.  And  being  frigid 
she  must  find  all  the  rest  of  us  very  curious,  very  comic. 


78  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

That  may  be  the  explanation  of  her  laughter  and  the 
tricks  she  plays  with  us. 

She  has  always  played  tricks  with  me.  She  has  always 
got  everything  out  of  me  that  she  wanted.  Even  when 
she  wanted  Binky,  I'd  have  given  him  to  her.  It  wasn't 
my  fault  that  Uncle  Archie  died  at  the  wrong  moment. 
I  believe  she  and  Binky  would  have  suited  each  other 
admirably,  for  I  realize  now  that  they  both  have  repeatedly 
hurt  me  the  same  way. 

I  remember  one  night  when  I  was  about  fourteen 
hearing  that  Phil's  mother  was  ill,  and  her  father  away, 
and  the  cook  drunk.  I  don't  know  how  I  gathered  this 
information,  from  the  servants  I  suppose,  but  anyhow 
I  flung  on  a  coat  and  rushed  round  to  their  house  in  Oak 
Street  and  ran  up  the  stairs,  and  burst  out  that  I  had 
come  for  the  night,  that  I  would  take  care  of  the  children, 
that  I  was  so  dreadfully  sorry.  I  was  full  of  enthusiastic 
sympathy,  and  began  all  this  the  moment  she  opened 
the  front  door,  and  I  poured  it  all  out  and  ended  up 
by  saying  with  an  earnest  motherly  manner :  "  So,  Philly 
dear,  I  couldn't  bear  to  have  you  here  alone  —  brooding 
through  the  night ;  and  I  came."  It  sounds  ridiculous ; 
of  course  I  admit  that  it  must  have  sounded  ridiculous, 
but  I  can  feel  again  the  hot  wave  of  mortification  and 
disappointment  and  the  consciousness  of  my  absurdity 
when  she  began  to  laugh.  I  saw  then  that  she  had  a 
paper-covered  novel  in  her  hand  with  her  forefinger 
keeping  the  place. 

"  Come  on  in,"  she  gurgled.  "  Gracious  goodness ! 
come  on  in.  Oh  dear,  you  are  so  funny,"  and  she  led 
me  giggling  up  the  stairs  to  her  room,  where  she'd  been 
evidently  lying  on  her  bed  with  a  box  of  chocolates. 
The  next  day  she  repeated  my  remarks  to  Louise. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  79 

"  Brooding  through  the  night,  great  Scott !  Would  any 
one  else  ever  talk  like  that  but  Johnny ! "  I  remember 
I  felt  it  very  cruel  of  her  to  tell  Louise  how  silly  I'd 
been. 

Of  course  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  Binky  is  quite  like 
that,  or  has  ever  so  obviously  made  fun  of  my  feelings 
about  him,  but  I  know  that  I  often  used  to  seem  to  him 
absurd  and"  quaint,  and  I  have  had  to  learn  not  to  be 
spontaneous. 

Binky  has  an  aversion  to  the  human  heart.  He  has 
always  regarded  my  interest  in  human  beings  as  a  not 
quite  nice  eccentricity.  He  has  a  chronic  fear  of  what 
I  call  the  great  things  and  the  deep  things.  His  bogey 
is  revolution,  and  his  effort  is  to  keep  every  one  well- 
behaved  in  his  own  little  place,  so  he  wants  always  to 
deny  the  existence  of  emotions  and  mysteries.  And  as 
Phyllis  doesn't  realize  that  they  do  exist,  they  ought  to 
have  got  on  admirably. 

I  suppose  Phil's  mother  knocked  all  such  romantic 
nonsense  out  of  her  head  ages  ago,  before  Patrick  O'Brien 
ever  turned  up  on  those  flirtatious  front  steps  of  the 
house  in  Oak  Street,  those  sociable  flirtatious  front  steps 
where  Phyllis  received  her  beaux.  How  I  used  to  envy 
her  both,  steps  and  beaux.  If  you  are  not  American 
you  can  scarcely  realize  their  significance,  their  important 
place  in  the  social  system.  The  Pat-Phyllis  story  might 
be  labelled  "  The  Romance  of  the  Front  Steps."  I'm 
sure  Pat  proposed  on  them.  They  were  of  wood,  and 
they  formed  before  the  front  door  a  small  verandah,  and 
in  the  warm  spring  evenings  they  used  to  be  black  with 
young  men  who  came,  sometimes  with  banjos  or  with  of- 
ferings of  candy,  to  sit  at  Phyllis's  little  white  feet.  I  don't 
know  how  old  she  was  when  she  began  to  hold  court  there, 


8o  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

about  fourteen,  I  should  think,  but  it  seemed  to  me  she 
always  had  had  the  little  airs  and  grace  of  a  young  lady 
tucked  away  behind  her  boyishness,  ready  to  put  on  when 
she  liked. 

Oak  Street  runs  east  from  Jefferson  Drive  into  Grant 
Street.  The  "  Micks,"  many  of  them,  lived  in  Grant 
Street  above  bakeries,  groceries,  and  saloons.  Patrick 
O'Brien  lived  there  somewhere,  possibly  behind  that  big 
saloon  on  the  corner  of  Maple  and  Grant.  At  least  I've 
an  idea  that  was  the  place,  because  I  know  big  political 
gatherings  took  place  there,  and  you  remember  Pat's 
father  was  a  politician. 

Oak  Street  is  a  sudden  unashamed  transition  between 
the  mansions  of  Jefferson  Drive  and  the  saloons  of 
Grant  Street.  It  degenerates  rapidly,  for  it  is  not  more 
than  five  hundred  yards  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and 
at  the  west  end,  or  top,  are  dilapidated  wooden  houses 
built  like  farm-houses,  and  tenanted,  the  stoops  as  well 
as  the  houses,  by  prolific  Italians  whose  bow-legged  off- 
spring sprawl  over  the  wooden  sidewalks. 

Phyllis  lived  half-way  up  Oak  Street  in  No.  83.  No. 
83  was  a  mere  scrap  of  a  house  sandwiched  in  between 
two  larger  ones,  but  it  was  nice  and  cosy,  even  outside, 
with  its  low,  inviting  front  door  and  the  bay  window 
on  the  first  floor  jutting  out  over  it.  I  had  always 
particularly  liked  Phyllis's  house.  It  was  diminutive, 
like  a  doll's  house,  and  it  had  an  informal  attractive  air 
about  it,  and  Mrs.  Day,  however  sour  she  may  have 
felt,  looked  nice  and  motherly  as  she  sat  continually 
sewing  behind  the  crisp  white  muslin  curtains  of  the 
bow  window.  The  smallness  and  the  closeness  of  the 
house  and  of  the  Days'  family  life  appealed  to  me.  One 
felt  protected  and  gossipy  there.  Within  the  definite 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  81 

limitations  of  their  poverty  was  left  no  room  for  troubling 
ideals.  I  used  often  to  go  home  with  Phyllis  in  the 
afternoon,  and  we  invariably  found  Mrs.  Day  sewing 
or  darning  stockings  in  the  failing  light.  She  would 
look  up  when  Phyllis  burst  in,  radiant  and  rosy,  and 
would  smile  dotingly  and  bitterly  upon  her  daughter;  a 
smile  that  pulled  her  rather  pretty  mouth  to  one  side. 
There  was  a  queer  mixture  of  tender  indulgence  and 
of  hungry  curiosity  in  her  glance.  Chained  so  much  of 
the  time  to  her  work-table,  her  horizon  bounded  by  the 
window  through  which  her  fine  sharp  eyes  watched  envi- 
ously the  comings  and  goings  of  her  neighbours,  she 
would  dwell  upon  her  grievances  and  her  ambitions.  She 
depended  on  Phyllis  to  bring  her  news,  and  for  lack 
of  other  companions  she  had  become  accustomed  to 
treating  her  in  the  relaxed  mood  of  evening  to  all  the 
bitter  thoughts  that  accumulated  during  the  day.  Pov- 
erty had  drawn  the  two  together  in  a  strange  adult 
intimacy. 

For  me,  she  had  always  a  sugary,  rather  pitying 
smile.  It  has  taken  me  a  long  time  to  fathom  that 
smile,  but  I  have  discovered  that  it  was  meant  to  make 
me  feel  what  a  terrible  misfortune  was  mine  in  being 
the  daughter  of  such  a  rich  man.  I  must  have  been 
a  constant  source  of  acute  annoyance  to  Mrs.  Day.  She 
must  have  enjoyed  talking  to  me  as  one  enjoys  scratching 
a  sore.  In  any  case  she  always  detained  me,  and  talked 
on  at  me,  making  continually  shy  little  remarks  about 
rich  women  having  time  to  be  religious,  but  she  had 
to  stick  to  darning;  or  about  how  little  girls  who  didn't 
have  to  count  their  pennies  could  afford  to  lose  hair- 
ribbons;  always  with  the  same  acid-sweet  hypocritical 
pity. 


82  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  think  I  always  instinctively  disliked  Mrs.  Day,  but 
I  didn't  admit  this  to  myself.  It  would  not  have  been 
loyal  to  Phyllis. 

What  struck  me  as  so  curious  about  that  time  was  that 
Mrs.  Day  and  Phyllis  could  be  so  sweet  and  loving  to  each 
other,  and  so  horrid  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Phyllis  would  give  her  half  a  dozen  nibbling  kisses, 
rubbing  her  mother's  worn  cheek  with  her  cold  nose,  as 
a  puppy  would  do,  and  then  fling  herself  on  the  window- 
seat  among  the  stockings  and  under-flannels  and  children's 
clothes ;  and  they  would  gossip  about  their  neighbours 
in  the  bitterest  way. 

I  suppose  I  drank  in  a  certain  amount  of  poison  during 
these  sittings  —  I  don't  know,  I  wasn't  there  so  very 
much  after  all,  but  I'm  sure  Mrs.  Day  deposited  a 
thick  layer  of  poisonous  sediment  in  her  daughter's 
mind.  She  must  have.  Her  talk  ranged  from  Mr. 
Brown's  new  overcoat  next  door  and  the  Manniere 
girls'  silk  petticoats  which  they  could  not  afford,  to 
Mrs.  Bowers'  champagne  suppers,  which  she  had  never 
been  to,  but  where  the  men  got  drunk,  and  so  forth 
and  so  on,  all  tinged  with  envy,  malice,  and  maternal 
jealousy. 

"  Louise  Bowers  is  going  to  Paris  next  year,"  Phyllis 
announced  one  night. 

"  Oh ! "  Mrs.  Day  drew  a  sharp  breath.  Her  thin 
face  contracted.  She  moved  her  head  irritably.  Phyllis 
rubbed  her  nose  against  the  window-pane,  purring. 

"  She's  going  into  a  convent.  Wouldn't  that  jar  you  ?  " 
She  sniffed,  genuinely  disgusted  with  the  idea,  vaguely 
and  uncomfortably  aware  of  the  sudden  tumult  of 
jealousy  in  her  mother's  bosom. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  83 

"If  your  father  could  only  make  a  little  more  money," 
said  Mrs.  Day,  with  a  sidelong  look  at  me. 

Phyllis  opened  her  eyes.  "  I  wouldn't  go  to  a  convent 
for  worlds.  Not  much !  " 

Mrs.  Day  was  staring  into  the  gathering  gloom, 
her  hands  in  her  lap,  her  shoulders  hanging  forward 
wearily. 

"Mrs.  Bowers  knows  what  she's  doing  —  oh  —  if  — 

if "  She  broke  off  as  suddenly  as  she  began,  then 

began  again :  "  Who  would  ever  think  my  family  was 
better  than  hers?  Family  doesn't  count  in  this  coun- 
try, or  blue  blood  —  she  wasn't  any  one,  you  know, 
but  look  how  she's  managed,  always  entertaining  the 
right  people.  She's  clever,  but  if  your  father  could 
only  make  a  little  more  money "  Her  voice  shook. 

"  Money !  "  grunted  the  daughter.  "  Louise  has  a 
rotten  time,  and  Joan  doesn't  have  any  more  fun  than 
me,  do  you,  Joan  ?  " 

I  shook  my  head.  Mrs.  Day  pursed  her  lips  super- 
ciliously, and  I  dimly  realized  that  she  felt  a  deep  un- 
reasoning grudge  against  my  mother  for  being  a  recluse. 
It  was  a  crime  to  have  social  position  and  beauty  and 
wealth  and  then  not  to  do  any  entertaining. 

I  began  to  feel  very  uncomfortable. 

"  Your  mother,"  Phyllis  indicated  me,  "  asked  me  yes- 
terday if  I  believed  in  Jesus  Christ."  She  giggled.  Her 
mother's  twisted  smile  grew  more  bitter.  Her  contempt 
for  the  religion  that  would  not  let  one  enjoy  life  was 
deep ;  and  she  was  angry  at  any  one  interfering  with  her 
own  child. 

"  Your  mother  is  too  much  of  a  saint  for  this  world," 
she  said  to  me. 


84  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  got  up,  feeling  hot  and  angry.  My  eyes  smarted,  my 
lip  trembled. 

"  I  must  be  going  home,"  I  managed  to  say.  Mrs. 
Day  looked  conscience-smitten,  and  ashamed,  but  I  was 
too  much  afraid  of  bursting  out  into  tears  or  angry  words 
to  stay.  I  ran  out  of  the  room. 

Why  did  I  keep  going  back  there  to  that  detestable 
talk,  with  its  sly  hits  at  my  mother  and  father?  I 
don't  know.  I  suppose  because  I  loved  Phyllis,  and  I 
believed  she  loved  me.  I  still  believe  she  did  a  little 
in  those  days.  Why  did  I  love  her?  I  don't  know. 
She  fascinated  me,  as  she  has  fascinated  hundreds  of, 
other  people,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  knew  she  would 
never  hesitate  to  push  me  out  of  the  way,  if  I  weren't 
useful  to  her.  I  kept  going  back,  and  have  always  kept 
going  back,  till  this  last  time  when  over  Binky  it  all 
went  to  pieces,  our  supposed  friendship ;  and  that  was  due 
to  her  after  all,  not  to  me. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Mrs.  Day  was  a  cynic. 
Phyllis,  her  daughter,  is  a  cynic  if  you  like,  but  her 
mother  was  an  idealist,  and  a  romanticist. 

She  was  a  soured,  disagreeable  woman,  with  an  infinite 
capacity  for  being  nasty  to  her  neighbours,  but  she 
would  never  be  soured  and  cynical  about  her  family.  She 
might  loathe  poverty,  and  be  consumed  with  anger  against 
her  husband's  futility;  she  might  lose  her  temper  daily 
with  nervous  unreason,  and  weep  sickly  over  the  children's 
garments  that  filled  her  work-table :  nevertheless,  the  word 
"  home  "  would  always  hold  for  her  a  sentimental,  even 
a  mystic,  significance ;  marriage  would  always,  in  her 
fancy,  assume  a  religious  beauty ;  motherhood  would 
always  seem  a  heart-breaking  delight,  and  the  crown  of 
womanhood.  She  adored  her  children;  her  face  would 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  85 

soften  as  she  looked  at  her  unquestionably  pretty 
daughter,  and  then  a  tremor  would  pass  over  her 
features. 

"  Don't  ever  let  yourself  fall  in  love  with  a  poor  man," 
she  would  say  fiercely  to  Phyllis,  and  in  these  words 
were  packed  all  the  deep  affection  and  resentment  she 
bore  her  husband.  She  would  never  bid  Phyllis  make 
a  cold-blooded,  mercenary  marriage,  but  she  would  pray 
in  her  heart  that  the  child  find  and  love  a  good,  handsome 
millionaire.  It  was  impossible  for  her  ever  to  entirely 
rid  herself  of  the  sweetness  of  her  own  youth.  Her 
husband  was  too  devoted  and  too  simple  to  allow  of  her 
doing  this. 

Mr.  Day  reached  home  at  ten  minutes  to  seven  o'clock, 
just  twelve  hours  after  his  departure  in  the  morning. 
He  rose  every  morning  at  six,  had  a  hot  breakfast,  took 
a  trolley  car  for  fifteen  minutes,  a  suburban  train  for 
an  hour,  and  arrived  in  the  office  of  the  Fairfax  works, 
Fairfax-Ville,  at  eight-thirty;  stayed  there  till  five-thirty, 
and  took  the  same  route  home.  He  had  been  doing  this 
for  fifteen  years ;  and  he  was  forty-five  years  old.  It 
would  have  been  possible,  of  course,  for  him  to  have 
shortened  his  working  day  by  living  nearer  his  place 
of  business.  He  could  have  lived  on  the  south  side, 
close  to  it.  The  south  side  was  a  wilderness,  a  vast 
desert,  of  new  pale  brick  buildings,  full  of  innumerable 
flats,  designed  for  just  such  people  as  himself.  Naturally 
his  wife  did  not  wish  to  live  there,  and  Mr.  Day,  who 
lived  for  his  wife  and  children,  agreed  that  the  north 
side  was  nicer.  People  who  lived  on  the  north  side  at 
least  had  neighbours,  and  sometimes  one  came  to  know 
one's  neighbours.  The  children  would  grow  up  to 
know  other  children  of  their  own  kind.  This  was  all 


86  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

that  could  be  definitely  said  for  it,  but  the  quality  of  the 
north  side  was  as  absolute  and  binding  as  it  was 
indefinable,  and  Mr.  Day  admitted  it.  He  always 
admitted  the  truth  of  his  wife's  convictions,  and  the 
value  of  her  tastes,  because  he  felt  constantly  that  he  had 
done  her  an  injury  and  had  been  repeating  it  daily  for 
fifteen  years,  in  not  being  worth  more  to  John  J.  Fairfax 
than  two  thousand  a  year. 

They  had  begun  life  together  full  of  hope.  It  was 
a  love  match,  of  course,  and  he  had  been  the  envied  of 
all  young  men  when  he  had  secured  the  penniless  belle 
of  that  gentle  southern  town.  His  prospects  had  been 
as  rosy  as  prospects  are  in  "  love's  young  dream."  John 
J.  Fairfax,  senior,  had  been  a  friend  of  his  father's, 
and  had  given  him  a  job.  He  had  every  opportunity  to 
get  on,  and  he  had  risen  from  five  hundred  a  year  to 
two  thousand.  That  was  his  measure.  Maude,  the  girl- 
wife,  had  thought  it  fun  to  begin  on  five  hundred  dollars 
a  year.  She  had  thought  it  fun  because  she  had  believed 
it  was  merely  a  picnic,  a  lark  of  poverty  preceding  a 
serious  banquet  of  wealth.  Her  sweetness  had  been  the 
good-nature  of  blind  optimism,  and  with  disillusionment 
had  come  bitterness.  He  had  in  the  early  days  found 
the  sight  of  her  dainty  figure  bending  over  the  kitchen 
stove  a  poetic,  entrancing  sight,  but  now  it  hurt  him  to 
notice  that  her  finger-tips  were  rough  with  the  prickings 
of  a  needle.  He  tried  not  to  see  them.  He  always  tried 
not  to  see  things  that  hurt  him,  and  always  he  pretended 
to  be  happy,  but  life  weighed  on  him,  and  his  daily 
journey  home  was  a  long,  heavy  dream  of  lost  hopes. 
Only  at  the  last  lap  of  his  daily  pilgrimage,  at  the  top 
of  Oak  Street,  did  he  assume  a  jaunty  air,  and  on 
reaching  his  own  front  door  he  would  begin  to  whistle, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  87 

keeping  it  up  while  mounting,  more  rapidly  than  he 
found  comfortable,  the  last  steps  to  the  bedroom.  It 
was  his  nightly  terror  that  she  should  tell  him  the 
cook  had  left,  but  he  came  to  her  smiling,  and  his 
large,  rubicund  face,  made  for  jollity,  never  gave  him 
away.  He  looked  still,  at  a  casual  glance,  a  hale  and 
hearty  man,  but  his  high  colour  was  not  the  colour  of 
health,  his  figure,  seemingly  robust  and  portly,  was  flabby 
and  top-heavy  and  his  knees  weak.  His  innocent,  delight- 
ful blue  eyes  were,  too,  marred  by  blood-shot  eyeballs, 
and  there  was  an  uneasy  apologetic  joviality  in  his  man- 
ner. His  natural  kind-heartedness  had  gradually  through 
repeated  snubs  from  business  men,  turned  into  a  sort  of 
conciliatory  cordiality.  He  knew  himself  to  be  a  failure, 
and  he  now  pretended  to  love  a  world  that  had  conquered 
him. 

Whether  Mrs.  Day  persuaded  him  to  go  to  my  father 
or  not  about  Phyllis  I  don't  know,  but  I  think  not.  I 
think  Mr.  Day  was  too  proud  to  beg,  and  too  fine  to 
set  so  much  store  by  a  fashionable  boarding  school  for 
his  daughter.  He  was  a  simple  man,  and  he ,  worked 
proudly,  plodding  stolidly  to  his  death.  I've  an  idea 
that  my  father  sent  Phyllis  to  school  without  it  being 
suggested  to  him,  and  with  Mr.  Day's  reluctant  per- 
mission and  Mrs.  Day's  resentful  gratitude.  Anyhow, 
I  know  it  had  all  been  arranged  when  I  went  to  say 
good-bye  to  Phil  that  night  before  we  went  abroad.  She 
was  going  to  Farmington  in  the  autumn,  and  it  was  only 
her  father's  collapse  that  prevented  her  making  a  lot 
of  fashionable  friends  and  realizing  her  mother's  dream, 
for  Patrick  O'Brien  could  never  be  said  to  realize  Mrs. 
Day's  dream.  Rich  and  powerful  as  he  is  to-day,  she 
can  never  forget  that  he  was  once  a  "  Mick." 


88  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Softening  of  the  brain  is  a  terrible  thing.  It  lasts 
so  long.  Poor  Mrs.  Day !  Doubtless  during  those  years 
of  nursing,  of  weeping  over  that  living  corpse,  so  ghastly 
in  its  similarity  to  her  husband,  during  those  years  of 
endless  tenderness  and  patience,  with  which  she  tried 
to  atone  for  her  many  bygone  tempers,  it  must  have 
come  to  her  that  she  was  responsible.  Yes,  it  must 
have  been  quite  clear  to  her  that  it  was  her  own  jealous 
ambition  that  killed  him.  And  doubtless,  too,  the  terrible 
position  at  home  had  a  lot  to  do  with  Phyllis's  acceptance 
of  Pat.  She  has  been  able  to  make  her  mother  very 
comfortable  since  her  marriage. 

The  windows  and  doors  of  many  houses  in  Oak  Street 
stood  open,  that  evening,  when  I  went  to  say  good-bye 
to  Phyllis.  They  sent  out  shafts  of  light  into  the  shadowy 
street,  that  was  alive  with  laughing  voices  and  moving 
forms.  Children  played  hop-scotch  on  the  sidewalk. 
Mothers  and  fathers  and  neighbours  visited  on  their 
front  steps. 

I  found  Phyllis  in  the  kitchen  washing  up  the  dinner 
dishes.  She  had  a  big  blue  check  apron  over  her  white 
muslin  dress,  and  her  arms  were  submerged  in  the 
steaming  water  of  the  sink.  Her  wonderful  hair  was 
tied  up  at  the  back  of  her  neck  with  a  white  ribbon,  in 
a  way  that  made  her  look  a  young  lady.  It  was  terribly 
hot  in  the  kitchen,  and  the  flickering  bracket  light  seemed 
gasping  for  breath  in  the  close,  steamy  atmosphere. 

She  nodded  brightly  over  her  shoulder  without  expla- 
nations. Quite  obviously,  the  cook  had  left,  and  she 
had  cooked  the  dinner,  had  put  it  on  the  dumb  waiter, 
served  it  to  her  father  and  mother  and  the  two  younger 
children  in  the  dining-room,  and  then  had  cleared  it 
away.  She  was  continually  doing  this.  One  of  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  89 

points  on  which  she  was  immovable  was  that  her  mother 
should  not  enter  the  kitchen  in  the  evening.  She  was 
very  considerate  of  her  mother,  and  very  efficient.  The 
dinners  she  cooked  were  good.  I  know  because  I've 
eaten  them,  and  I've  watched  her  make  pastry,  baste  a 
roast,  mash  potatoes,  with  the  swift,  accurate  movements 
of  a  professional.  All  the  same  she  hated  cooking.  She 
didn't  grumble,  because  there  was  no  use  grumbling, 
she  merely  laughed;  but  she  hated  it.  It  might  have 
been  over  that  stove  that  she  made  up  her  mind  not 
to  accept  any  man  with  less  than  a  million  dollars.  She 
had  no  nonsense  about  her,  no  sentiment  of  self-sacrifice 
that  made  her  enjoy  work.  Hers  is  an  economical  nature, 
given  to  no  extravagance  of  mood,  and  she  is  in  her 
frivolous  way  a  stoic  with  a  philosophy  of  life  almost  as 
finished  as  Binky's. 

I  implored  her  to  let  me  help  her,  and  rolled  up  my 
sleeves. 

"  All  right,"  she  said,  "  you  dry."  She  began  hauling 
plates  out  of  the  water.  One  by  one,  she  handed  them 
to  me.  Through  the  open  windows  came  the  sound  of 
a  hand-organ  and  children  screaming  happily.  And  she 
looked  so  exquisite  in  that  dingy  kitchen  that  for  tuppence 
I  could  have  sentimentalized  over  her. 

"  You're  a  dear,"  she  began.  "  Poor  Daddy,  he 
couldn't  have  managed  it.  I'm  going  to  have  the  most 
scrumptious  new  clothes,  and  two  silk  petticoats.  I  sup- 
pose all  the  girls  at  Farmington  have  silk  petticoats."  I 
murmured  that  I  supposed  they  did.  "  I  wouldn't  change 
with  Louise,  and  go  to  her  convent  for  worlds.  Tommy, 
you  know,  will  be  at  Yale.  He's  asked  me  to  the  Yale- 
Harvard  game."  She  chattered  on,  laughing  with  antici- 
pation, and  rinsing  plates  busily.  If  I  have  not  succeeded 


90  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

in  conveying  to  you  her  attraction,  let  me  put  it  simply, 
that  it  lay  in  the  fact  that  she  always  looked  so  happy. 
Her  dimples  and  her  very  white,  regular  teeth,  and 
her  eyes  and  her  hair,  all  seemed  alive  with  happiness, 
and  she  is  just  as  invaluable  to  society  as  light.  One 
would  as  soon  think  of  resisting  her  as  of  pulling  down 
the  blinds  on  a  sunny  day  in  the  middle  of  winter.  And 
the  fact  that  her  brightness  is  a  fake  doesn't  matter. 
What  difference  does  it  make  whether  it's  only  a  trick  of 
eyelash  and  curved  lips,  or  an  effulgence  from  the  soul? 
None.  The  result  is  the  same,  precisely  the  same. 

"  There !  I've  just  got  to  put  these  away,  then  I'm 
done ;  you  go  up  and  talk  to  mother  till  I  come.  Gosh ! 
it's  hot."  She  dismissed  me  with  a  splashy  gesture. 

I  found  Mr.  Day  in  the  hall  dozing  over  his  evening 
paper,  his  large  head  fallen  forward  on  his  chest  in  a 
way  that  made  him  look  decrepit  and  old.  Mrs.  Day 
was  on  the  front  stoop  in  a  low  wicker  chair,  fanning 
herself  with  a  palm-leaf  fan.  She  proceeded  to  smother 
me  with  pity. 

Was  I  not  going  to  boarding-school  at  all?  Wouldn't 
I  miss  my  girl  friends?  It  was  so  unnatural  for  a 
young  girl  to  spend  all  her  youth  with  an  old  man, 
not  that  my  father  was  really  old.  She  supposed,  thanks 
to  me,  that  Phyllis  would  make  lots  of  nice  friends 
in  the  East.  From  her  pale  lips  and  expressive  eyes 
I  gathered  that  Phyllis  was  infinitely  lucky  and  beau- 
tiful, that  it  was  nice  of  my  father  to  help  her,  but 
that  she  could  have  got  on  very  well  without  any  help 
at  all. 

I  suppose  I  was  jealous  of  Phyllis.  Having  played 
the  benefactor  it  seemed  to  me  a  sorry  role,  and  going 
abroad  with  my  father  began  to  look  very  dull  compared 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  91 

to  Yale-Harvard  football  games.  I  felt  very  miserable 
by  the  time  she  came  out  to  join  us,  all  fluffy  muslin  and 
curls. 

I  was  going  away  for  a  long  time,  and  the  sociability 
of  Oak  Street  and  the  informality  of  the  front  stoop 
appealed  to  me  more  than  ever  before.  Phyllis,  sitting 
on  the  top  step,  rubbed  her  cheek  against  her'  mother's 
knee.  Her  eyes  were  bright,  a  little  smile  played  about 
her  lips.  The  provoking  dimples  came  and  went  in  her 
firm,  slender  cheeks.  I  felt  lonely,  and  when  two  young 
men  arrived  I  was  suddenly  set  aching  with  increased 
jealousy.  No  young  men  ever  came  to  call  on  me  in 
the  evenings.  Why  not?  I  tried  to  picture  them 
"  joshing  me,"  as  the  phrase  was,  on  Jefferson  Drive, 
but  I  couldn't.  I  sank  into  mute  admiration  of  Phyllis. 
It  was  wonderful  the  way  she  entertained  them  and  eyed 
them  and  laughed  softly  with  alluring  movements,  and 
seemed  to  keep  them  amused  without  talking.  Mrs.  Day 
had  disappeared,  and  presently  another  young  man  emerged 
out  of  the  shadowy  street,  and  then  two  more,  to  all 
of  whom  she  threw  a  casual  hallo,  as  they  joined  the 
group.  The  front  steps  were  presently  crowded  with 
young  men,  who  sat  at  Phyllis  Day's  little  slippered 
feet  and  vied  between  them  to  make  her  laugh.  It 
seemed  that  every  evening  young  men  paid  court  in  this 
fashion  to  Phyllis.  They  ragged  her  about  each  other, 
and  teased  her  mysteriously.  And  she  was  demure  and 
secretive. 

"  Who  came  every  night  last  week,  I'd  like  to  know  ?  " 
sneered  one  jovially. 

"  He's  got  it  bad." 

"  Say,  Phil,  look  here,  you  must  leave  the  debutantes' 
beaux  alone;  they'll  be  getting  jealous,"  And  so  on, 


92  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to  all  of  which  Phyllis  gurgled  and  replied  in  dainty 
negative  monosyllables,  repudiating  carelessly  the  accusa- 
tion of  being'a  belle  and  cutting  out  the  older  girls. 

I  tried  to  talk  to  the  youths,  but  I  didn't  succeed  very 
well.  They  spoke  to  me  stiffly,  and  looked  bored  when 
I  asked  them  if  they  were  fond  of  baseball.  My  heart 
grew  heavier  and  heavier.  Why  couldn't  I  sparkle -and 
fascinate  like  Phyllis?  Why  couldn't  I  talk  silly, 
delicious  nonsense? 

My  father's  appearance  came  as  a  blessed  release. 
He  stood  at  the  bottom  of  the  steps  surveying  the  group. 
He  seemed  astonished.  They  all  sprang  to  their  feet. 
Phyllis  said,  "  Good-evening,  Mr.  Fairfax,"  with  the 
manner  of  a  society  lady  that  suddenly  made  her  absurd. 
Then  she  called  through  the  door :  "  Mamma,  Mr.  Fairfax 
has  come  for  Joan."  There  was  an  awkward  moment 
during  which  we  all  stood  around. 

My  father  talked  a  little  to  Mr.  Day,  who  followed 
his  wife  outdoors,  then  said  good-bye.  Phyllis  ran  after 
me,  shaking  off  her  young  men,  to  whisper  enthusiastic 
endearments  into  my  ears,  and  then  flew  back  to  them 
in  a  whirl  of  smiles  and  dimples,  and  I  walked  home 
heavy-hearted  with  my  hand  on  my  father's  arm, 
wondering  how  I  could  make  myself  fascinating  to 
men. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

I  HAVE  alluded  to  my  mother's  death,  but  I  must 
go  back  and  bring  you  up-to-date  with  Louise.  My 
mother  died  the  year  after  Jim  Van  Orden's  mother 
was  divorced,  and  as  Mrs.  Bowers  must  have  made  up 
her  mind  then  and  there  to  have  Jim  for  a  son-in-law, 
it  seems  worth  while  to  tell  you  a  little  more  about 
her.  Doubtless  you  think  Louise  an  uninteresting  per- 
son; perhaps  she  is,  as  a  character,  but  not  as  a  social 
product,  as  the  sort  of  thing  America  with  its  American 
mothers  turns  out;  for  whatever  she  is,  her  mother 
made  her.  She  was  never  allowed  to  find  out  anything 
for  herself,  or  follow  out  an  idea  of  her  own.  Mrs. 
Bowers  nipped  her  soul  in  the  bud,  and  went  on  nipping 
and  snipping  at  her  mind  until  there  was  absolutely 
nothing  left.  And  Louise  never  knew  it.  Not  only  did 
she  not  know  that  she  had  no  mind,  nothing  but  a 
collection  of  attitudes  handed  to  her  beautifully  cat- 
alogued by  her  mother,  but  she  was  totally  unaware  that 
she  ever  had  a  soul,  that  her  mother  ever  crushed  it  and 
committed  skilful  murder  upon  it  with  a  pair  of  nippers. 
Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  is  very  clever  with  nippers.  She, 
at  least,  is  an  interesting  person  if  her  daughter  is  not. 
In  her  worship  of  virtue  she  expressed  the  mind  of 
society.  Society  in  Iroquois  can  be  known  by  its  clothes. 
Mrs.  Bowers  was  one  of  the  best-dressed  women  in 
town,  she  was  a  leader  of  society.  She  expressed,  in 
her  conduct  and  her  conversation,  the  beliefs  and  ideals 

93 


94  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

of  the  most  fortunate  people  of  her  local  world,  and 
virtue  is  worshipped  by  the  very  best  people  in  Iroquois, 
that  is,  by  the  best-dressed  people.  It  almost  seems 
as  though  virtue  is  worshipped  because  through  virtue 
one  most  easily  obtains  clothes  and  more  clothes,  and 
the  background  for  clothes  —  but  perhaps  that  is  not 
quite  true. 

Those  things  which  Mrs.  Bowers  worshipped  were 
the  idols  of  the  refined  and  the  wealthy,  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  of  the  cultured,  who  were  also  rich,  for  refine- 
ment without  wealth  was  not  worth  her  while,  and  wealth 
without  culture  was  to  her  distasteful. 

Still,  as  has  already  been  said,  it  was  neither  culture 
nor  riches  that  was  enshrined  in  the  temple  of  her  per- 
fectly irreligious  mind,  but  the  love  of  virtue.  There 
it  lay  in  her  heart  under  the  frail,  frivolous  laces  of 
her  Parisian  clothes,  like  some  bit  of  antique  jewellery 
embedded  in  a  modern  casket,  out  of  place,  yet  inef- 
faceable. It  was  the  very  centre  of  her  being  abso- 
lute in  itself,  linked  to  no  religious  experience,  nor 
any  ideal  fervour,  yet  reconciling  to  itself  her  most 
worldly  ambitions.  There  is  a  certain  logic  in  the 
matter. 

Social  position  in  Iroquois  is  rigid  and  tyrannical  in 
its  demands.  Society,  that  small  nucleus  of  snobs, 
which  has  evolved  itself  somehow  out  of  the  prairie, 
Society  has  to  justify  its  existence  constantly,  to  give 
evidence  of  its  actuality  daily.  Without  traditions,  or 
titles,  or  world-old  names,  without  landed  estates,  or 
hereditary  noses,  or  state  decorations,  without  any  of 
that  stability  of  a  group  revolving  about  and  deriving 
its  life  from  a  royal  palace,  it  is  obliged  to  fall  back 
upon  clothes  for  its  insignia.  Social  position  is  too 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  .          95 

illusive  a  thing  to  allow  either  of  dowdiness  or  moral 
laxity.  No  counterpart  of  an  untidy  and  comfortable 
dowager  duchess  with  bad  table-manners  and  antique 
bonnets  exists  in  Iroquois.  Even  old  Madame  Bowers, 
aged  seventy,  mistress  of  a  family  of  three  generations 
of  millionaires,  was  obliged,  by  her  strenuous  daughters- 
in-law,  to  have  her  white  hair  dressed  daily  by  a  French 
maid.  No  beautiful  and  fatally  fascinating  creature, 
with  an  inevitable  succession  of  lovers,  would  have  been 
tolerated  for  one  moment.  Mrs.  Harry  Van  Orden 
was  our  nearest  approach  to  the  type,  and  Mrs.  Harry 
Van  Orden  was  a  tragic  figure.  To  no  set,  however 
smart,  however  eager  to  copy  the  ways  and  manners 
of  that  far-distant,  glittering  English  vanity  fair,  was 
morality  anything  but  a  consideration  of  supreme  im- 
portance. 

Mrs.  Van  Orden  was  divorced  by  her  husband  during 
the  first  winter  that  Jim  was  away  at  school,  when 
Louise  and  I  were  fourteen.  Mrs.  Bowers  and  the  rest 
of  society  were  delighted  to  be  justified  in  their  long 
succession  of  snubs  and  insults.  Harry  Van  Orden's 
good-nature  had  occasionally  given  them  a  feeling  of 
insecurity.  If  they  had  not  felt  sure  that  in  the  end 
he  would  really  divorce  her,  they  would  not  have  pur- 
sued the  same  tactics,  but  they  had  been  right,  and 
their  high  moral  attitude  brought  its  reward.  Agatha 
—  they  spoke  of  her  as  "  poor  Agatha  " —  had  disappeared 
at  the  beginning  of  the  proceedings.  She  had  been 
seen  for  the  last  time  at  the  railway-station  bidding  her 
son  good-bye,  with  set  lips  and  haggard  face.  No  one 
had  realized  then  that  this  was  the  last  time  she  would 
see  her  beautiful  boy,  but  the  thrill  of  the  dramatic 
moment  was  relished  in  retrospect.  Even  the  newspapers 


96  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

appreciated  the  tableau,  and  wrote  touchingly  about  the 
beautiful  erring  mother's  last  scene  with  the  child  she 
was  to  abandon.  The  Iroquois  Tribune  understood  the 
temperament  of  a  society  that  was  made  up  of  mothers. 
It  was  disappointing,  from  a  journalistic  point  of  view, 
that  the  case  was  not  defended ;  the  proceedings  in  court 
were  nil,  but  the  most  was  made  of  every  scrap  of 
domestic  information.  A  column  appeared  on  the  front 
page  every  day  for  a  week,  then  paragraphs.  The 
Tribune  limited  itself  to  detailed  descriptions  of  episodes 
and  a  biography  of  the  co-respondent,  and  speculation 
as  to  his  income,  but  the  yellow  journals  had  excellent 
photographs  of  the  incriminating  housemaid  and  of  the 
country  hotel  where  the  lovers  were  wont  to  retire,  also 
an  architect's  plan  of  Mrs.  Van  Orden's  bedroom  and 
boudoir. 

Mrs.  Bowers  and  her  friends  thought  the  publicity 
of  the  affair  absolutely  disgusting,  and  evidenced  by 
their  horrified  conversation  a  masterly  grasp  of  the  entire 
case  in  every  detail.  Mrs.  Bowers  happened  to  be  giving 
a  luncheon  on  the  day  that  the  decree  was  given.  It 
was  a  feminine  lunch,  of  course;  luncheons  always  are 
in  Iroquois;  the  guests  were  feminine,  the  food  was 
feminine,  and  the  conversation  was  feminine.  Of  the 
three,  undoubtedly,  the  food,  if  analysed,  would  have 
done  most  towards  the  establishment  of  the  female  as 
superior  to  the  male  species.  It  was  marvellous,  ten 
courses  of  it,  and  not  too  much  for  a  neurotic  stomach. 
Each  dish  was  a  work  of  art,  and  was  without  body  or 
substance  or  any  of  the  normal  masculine  attributes  of 
food,  saving  that  of  flavour.  That  chickens  and  potatoes 
and  green  vegetables  and  fruit  had  gone  into  the  con- 
coctions was  unbelievable.  One's  fork  dipped  into  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  97 

chicken  mousse  as  through  cream,  and  one's  palate  reg- 
istered faint  flavours  of  mushrooms,  truffles,  olives.  For 
the  piece  de  resistance,  the  something  solid  supplied  in 
case  some  one  might  be  hungry,  there  were  medaillons  de 
boeuf,  no  bigger  than  silver  dollars,  trimmed  with  aspar- 
agus tips  and  tiny  livers  of  some  diminutive  bird.  Salads 
of  alligator  pear  and  lettuce-leaves  as  crisp  and  crinkled 
as  though  freshly  laundered,  were  perched  lightly  on 
rare  Sevres  plates,  and  ices  a  la  Maraschino  froze 
languidly  in  golden  goblets.  The  table,  highly  polished 
and  without  a  tablecloth,  glittered  with  cut-glass,  silver, 
and  frail  painted  china,  and  the  women  glittered  with 
quick,  flashing  movements  of  heads,  eyes,  teeth,  and 
jewels.  In  high,  piercing  voices  they  provided  one 
another  with  an  intellectual  repast  no  less  highly 
seasoned  and  meaningless  than  the  food  toyed  with  upon 
their  plates,  while  two  ebony  negro  butlers,  the  only 
male  beings  in  the  room,  in  phenomenally  white  cravats, 
carried  priceless  dishes  back  and  forth  from  the  pantry 
with  discreetly  rolling  eyes.  They  were  the  only  negro 
butlers  in  Iroquois.  Under  the  tutelage  of  Mrs.  Bowers 
they  had  acquired  distinction. 

"  Will  he  marry  her,  do  you  think  ?  " 

"  I    sincerely   hope   so  " —  demure,    sympathetic,   very 
sympathetic  lips  and  cold  eyes. 

"  But  he  hasn't  a  penny !  " 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  ?     Poor  Agatha  always  showed 
herself    quite    clever    where   money    was    concerned  "- 
sympathy  less  perfect,  more  mixed  with  sourness. 

"  That's  what's  so  strange.     He  really  hasn't  more  than 
five  thousand  dollars  a  year  —  and  she,  nothing." 

"  I'm  sorry  for  the  man,  then  — a  woman  like  that  to 
support" 


98  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  They'll  have  to  disappear." 

"  They  have  —  they're  in  Italy.     My  nurse  told  me." 

"  Really !  She  does  manage  to  keep  things  dark. 
Why,  nobody  had  any  idea  for  months,  you  know.  She 
must  have  been  carrying  on  all  that  winter,  when  she 
was  the  rage  —  and  we  had  to  entertain  her  to  please 
the  men.  Positively,  George  insisted  on  having  her  to 
dinner  every  month,  and  at  the  very  time  she  was  sitting 

at  my  table,  she  must  have  been  already " 

•  On  the  other  side  of  the  table  — 

"  Not  a  penny !  Think  of  it,  my  dear !  Leaves  her 
handsome  husband  and  beautiful  child  to  go  off  with 
a  penniless  man,  and  a  fat,  ugly  man  too.  I  can't  under- 
stand it!" 

"  She'll  never  be  able  to  show  her  head  here  again. 
Poor  Agatha ! " 

"  But  tell  me  " —  voices  lowered,  looks  grow  mysteri- 
ous — "  do  you  think  it's  true  that  Harry  Van  Orden 
came  on  them " 

"  I  shouldn't  be  a  bit  surprised.  She  was  reckless, 
wild.  You  know  for  yourself  she  didn't  care  a  bit  what 
people  thought.  He  was  there  all  the  time.  No  wonder 
Hal  got  drunk  every  night !  " 

"  But  in  her  own  bedroom,  with  her  boy  sleeping  on 
the  same  floor " 

"  Well,  you  saw  the  plan  sketched  in  the  paper. 
Besides,  I've  been  in  her  bedroom  —  the  bathroom  does 
lead  out  the  other  way." 

"  Isn't  it  perfectly  horrible?  " 

"  Yes,  absolutely  horrible." 

And  underneath  all  the  excited  talk  there  ran  a  note 
that  no  one  heard,  or  would  have  admitted  hearing,  the 
note  of  envy.  As  their  horror  did  not  interfere  with  their 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  99 

enjoyment  of  the  scandal,  so  their  pitying  superiority  did 
not  altogether  still  the  envious  curiosity  in  their  own 
barren  breasts.  Their  interest  in  this  poor  tragedy  was 
the  more  voracious  because  they  were  virtuous  women 
—  and  ignorant.  They  had  reached  the  average  of  forty 
without  tasting  the  flavour  of  illicit  bliss,  or  even  of 
unconventional  emotion.  Their  marriages  had  been  love- 
matches.  Their  husbands  had  achieved  romance  in 
marrying  them,  and  expected  their  wives  to  prove  the 
ideal  by  subsequent  years  of  emotional  slavery.  And 
when  they  showed  signs  of  finding  their  bondage  irksome 
they  were  bribed  with  jewels  or  sables,  or  carriages  or 
expensive  orgies  of  dressmaking  in  Paris.  Poor  little 
society  women  of  Iroquois,  with  your  ropes  of  pearls 
and  your  female  companionship,  you  had  nothing  natural 
to  fall  back  on  but  motherhood,  and  you  became  mothers 
with  a  vengeance  —  not  in  the  number  of  children  you 
brought  forth,  but  in  the  intensity  of  your  mothering  — 
and  if  your  mothering  was  a  silly  and  greedy  and  with- 
ering thing,  who  can  blame  you?  You  had  no  other 
outlet  for  those  animal  instincts  you  concealed  so  cleverly 
under  your  flat  stylish  bosoms. 

We  heard  a  lot  of  this  talk  from  our  post  in  the 
pantry ;  by  we,  I  mean  Louise,  Phyllis,  and  I.  We  had 
descended  on  the  pantry  to  "  lick  the  plates,"  so  to  speak, 
and  while  occupied  with  this  pastime  we  listened  through 
the  open  door,  hidden  by  a  painted  leather  screen.  The 
scraps  of  conversation  were  nearly  as  thrilling  as  the 
scraps  of  food  were  delicious,  and  we  had,  together,  at 
precisely  the  same  instant,  the  same  inspiration.  We 
would  read  all  about  it  in  the  newspapers.  Sam,  the 
negro  butler,  kept  the  old  newspapers  in  the  pantry 
cupboard.  We  found  three,  and,  having  finished  the 


ioo  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

remnant  of  the  biscuit  glace,  retired  to  Louise's  room. 
That  was  the  last  time  we  three  ever  met  in  Louise's 
bedroom  until  three  years  ago,  when  we  met  to  discuss 
the  horrid  tangle  of  ourselves  and  our  husbands.  How 
strange  it  seems!  We  all  lay  in  a  happy,  loving  bunch 
on  the  bed,  behind  that  newspaper,  dated  February  Qth, 
1895.  We  thrilled  and  gasped  and  felt  guilty  in  unison, 
arms  and  legs  intertwined,  flushed  faces  close  together, 
eyes  intent  on  the  same  pages,  when  Mrs.  Bowers  came 
in  to  scatter  us.  She  certainly  did  scatter  us.  As  I  say, 
we've  never  met,  we  three,  in  a  bedroom  of  any  one  of 
us  since  then  until  three  years  ago,  when  we  met  and 
sat  stiffly  at  wide  distances,  and  walked  the  floor  and 
stared  out  of  the  window,  our  backs  to  each  other. 

At  the  sight  of  her  daughter  reading  the  divorce  case, 
Mrs.  Bowers  had  simply  flown  into  one  of  those  terrible 
rages  that  were  common  enough  with  her  in  her  own 
domain,  but  she  used  the  outburst  cleverly  after  she  cooled 
down.  She  was,  in  the  first  place,  really  shocked 
and  pained  at  the  idea  of  her  child's  finding  out  about 
this  thing. 

Mrs.  Bowers  regarded  God  somewhat  as  she  might 
have  regarded  a  very  aged  poor  relation  whose  presence 
in  her  house  would  make  her  ridiculous,  but  she  never- 
theless brought  up  her  daughter  in  the  way  of  righteous- 
ness. That  her  child  should  be  touched  by  the  unclean 
breath  of  the  wicked  world  was  a  frightful  thought, 
but  her  fear  for  Louise's  innocence  was  not  based  on 
any  hope  of  her  entering  heaven  as  a  spotless  little 
saint;  it  partook  rather  of  the  art-dealer's  concern  lest 
a  priceless  treasure  be  reduced  in  market  value.  Louise 
was  her  darling  daughter,  the  centre  of  all  her  ambitions 
and  imaginings,  and  she  would  some  day  be  married. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  101 

Every  hour  of  every  day  she  was  becoming  more  or 
less  desirable,  and  that  she  might  be  infinitely  desirable 
in  order  that  she  might  command  the  highest  price  in 
the  matrimonial  market;  to  this  end  was  her  mother 
straining  every  nerve.  Not  that  she  was  entirely  con- 
sistent in  the  matter.  She  was  human  after  all,  and  she 
craved  the  love  of  this  child  of  hers,  allowing  this 
craving  to  lead  her  into  indulgences.  Phyllis  had  been 
one  of  those  indulgences,  but  now  Phyllis  was  to  be 
barred. 

Mrs.  Bowers  had  never  met  Mrs.  Day.  There  was 
no  occasion  for  the  two  to  meet,  as  Mrs.  Bowers  went 
only  to  the  smartest  functions,  and  Mrs.  Day  rarely 
went  to  any  functions  at  all.  They  knew  each  other 
quite  well  by  sight,  but  never  had  they  spoken.  It 
would  not  have  been  impossible  for  Mrs.  Bowers  to 
make  a  friendly  call  on  Mrs.  Day  had  there  been  any 
point  in  this,  but  she  saw  no  point  in  it.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  would  be  much  easier  for  Louise  to  cut  Phyllis 
when  the  time  came,  if  Louise's  mother  did  not  know 
Phyllis's  mother.  Mrs.  Bowers  felt  that  the  time  had 
now  come.  She  anticipated  a  slight  struggle,  nothing 
more.  The  incident  of  the  newspaper  was  as  good  an 
occasion  as  any.  Phyllis  and  I  were  packed  off  home, 
and  Mrs.  Bowers  re-entered  her  daughter's  room  with 
a  hard,  calm  face,  to  find  the  latter  a  crumpled  heap 
on  the  bed,  her  nose  red,  her  eyes  swollen,  her  breath 
coming  in  broken,  gusty  sobs. 

"  Lou,  darling,  who  suggested  to  you  to  read  that 
paper  ? "  demanded  the  mother  with  sinister  mild- 
ness. 

"  I  don't  know.  We  heard  you  talking  at  lunch,  and 
we  found  it  in  the  pantry  cupboard." 


102  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Mrs.  Bowers  did  not  wince.  Her  philosophy  of  life 
was  complete. 

"  Things  that  are  fit  for  grown  people  to  read  are  not 
fit  for  children."  Still,  it  sounded  like  a  self-justification, 
and  that  was  a  mistake.  "  I  feel  sure,"  she  went  on, 
"  that  it  was  Phyllis  who  suggested  it.  I  don't  want  you 
to  play  with  Phyllis  any  more." 

Louise  sat  up  in  bed  suddenly,  her  wiry  curls  standing 
out  about  her  head  in  bushy  glory. 

"  Not  play  with  Phyllis  ?  "  she  gasped. 

"  Exactly  that."     Mrs.  Bowers  shut  her  lips. 

"  But  —  but  we  go  to  school  together  —  every  day.  I 
can't  just  stop  —  and  I  won't  —  I  won't.  I  love  Phyllis. 
We're  chums  —  we  are  a  triumphirate." 

"A  what?" 

"  We  three  —  Joan  and  Philly  and  I."  These  words 
came  fast  and  passionate.  "  We're  a  triumphirate, 
a  three-cornered  friendship  f orever'en  ever  —  I  love 
Phyllis.  We  tattoed  our  arms.  It's  a  sign  that'll  never 
fade." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,  Louise ;  but 
as  for  meeting  Phyllis  at  Miss  Broadwood's,  you  may  as 
well  stop  school  now.  We'll  go  to  Paris  a  few  months 
earlier,  and  that  will  make  it  easier  for  you." 

I  know  quite  well  what  was  said,  and  how  it  all 
happened,  partly  from  what  Louise  told  me,  partly  from 
my  subsequent  understanding  of  Mrs.  Bowers  and  her 
maternal  methods. 

The  word  Paris  acted  just  as  her  mother  wished  on 
Louise's  brain.  Oh,  clever  woman !  Louise  had  been 
prepared  for  this  long,  long  before.  All  unwittingly 
she  had  imbibed  the  doctrine  of  her  mother's  ambitions, 
had  drunk  down  the  intoxicating  drink  of  her  mother's 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  103 

carefully-mixed  flattery.  She  was  to  be  a  great  belle 
and  a  great  beauty,  and  Paris  was  to  make  her  this. 
She  was  to  have  perfect  manners  and  marvellous  clothes 
and  all  the  accomplishments,  and  she  was  to  acquire 
these  in  Paris.  She  was  to  fulfil  the  splendid  destiny 
of  a  beauty  and  a  belle  in  making  a  fastidious  choice 
among  all  the  suitors  that  would  ask  for  her  hand, 
and  in  order  to  be  in  a  position  to  do  this  she  must  go 
to  Paris.  Now  that  word  Paris.  It  flashed  across  the 
dark  struggle  of  her  loyal  little  heart,  lit  up  everything 
garishly,  distorted  the  old  tired  feelings,  made  them  look 
uninteresting. 

Her  heart  ached  for  Phyllis,  and  her  mind,  dazzled 
by  Paris,  was  troubled.  She  thought  moodily,  and  one 
finger  stole  into  her  red  mouth. 

"  Take  your  finger  out  of  your  mouth."  She  obeyed, 
and  gazed  at  her  mother  with  troubled  eyes  in  which  was 
no  questioning  of  authority,  no  suspicion  of  criticism, 
but  sheer  bewilderment. 

"  But  after  Paris  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  You'll  be  there  three  years.  Then  we'll  travel  for 
a  winter  —  and  in  four  years  you'll  come  out."  Another 
magic  phrase  — "  Come  out."  What  visions  of  dresses 
and  parties  and  beaux  and  flowers  and  chocolates  it 
called  forth! 

"  But  won't  Phyllis  be  coming  out  too  ?  " 

"I  don't  think  so."  Mrs.  Bowers  smiled.  "You 
needn't  worry  about  things  so  far  ahead.  I  don't  mean 
that  you  must  never  speak  to  her  again.  When  you're 
eighteen  you  can  do  as  you  like."  Mrs.  Bowers  smiled 
again,  but  she  could  not  resist  elucidating  the  matter 
a  little  further.  "You  see,  darling,  Phyllis  is  — is  a 
nobody  —  just  now  you  dear  children,  Joan  and  yourself, 


104  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

don't  understand  these  things,  but  you  will  find  when 
you  come  out  that  you  won't  meet  Phyllis  any  more." 

"  Oh,  but  Joan  ?  "  Louise  held  her  breath.  Was  I  to 
be  banned  too? 

Mrs.  Bowers  burst  into  her  very  effective,  carefully 
practised  laugh.  "  What  a  stupid  you  are,  my  pet ! 
Joan?  But  of  course  you  shall  always  love  Joan,"  and 
Louise  was  relieved. 

She  would  have  given  me  up  too,  of  course,  if  that 
had  been  on  her  mother's  program,  but  I  didn't  find 
her  out  then.  I  tried  not  to  blame  her  for  obeying  her 
mother  in  regard  to  Phyllis.  It  was  not  until  I  said 
good-bye  to  her  that  I,  for  the  first  time,  was  really 
irritated  by  her  complacency  and  suspicious  of  her  affec- 
tion for  me. 

"  Oh,  Joan,  Joan  darling  —  I  can't  leave  you  —  I 
simply  can't.  Won't  you  come?  Get  your  mother  to 
let  you  come  to  the  convent.  You  simply  must.  I  can't 
live  without  you."  And  suddenly  I  found  myself  saying 
to  myself,  "  I  don't  believe  it."  She  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  professing  just  as  much  love  for  Phil,  and  it  had 
been  easy  enough  for  her  to  give  Phil  up.  I  said  as 
much. 

"Oh,  but  that's  different."  I  didn't  see  why. 
*'  Phyllis  and  I  have  never,  never  been  to  each  other 
what  you  and  I  are."  That  was  a  lie,  but  such  a  glib 
little  lie  that  I  swallowed  it  for  the  moment.  "And 

then  you  see "  She  paused;  her  blue  eyes  took 

on  an  obtuse,  complacent  look,  that  made  me  want  to 
shake  her.  "  We  can't  help  it,  if  fate  separates  us 
from  Phyllis.  If  she's  going  to  be  so  poor,  you  see,  she 
won't  be  able  to  do  what  we  do.  It's  better  to  see 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  105 

that  now."  I  began  to  burn  inside,  and  I  had  then  an 
inspiration. 

"  You're  a  snob,"  I  burst  out.  I  believe  we  parted  in 
anger  and  tears. 

Phyllis  only  laughed  when  I  told  her  Louise  had  gone. 

"  Louise  is  a  goose,  but  she's  getting  to  be  a  cat,"  she 
said  after  a  minute's  thought. 

"  It's  her  mother,"  I  ventured. 

"  Her  mother  is  twenty  cats."  She  sniffed  and  laughed 
and  tossed  her  head.  "  I  don't  care  —  I'm  going  to  have 
a  good  time.  You  wait."  She  was  right.  It  didn't 
matter  to  her,  but  it  mattered  to  me.  I  had  believed  in 
the  "  triumphirate,"  and  it  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

MY  mother  died  when  I  was  fifteen.  I  suppose, 
if  she  had  not  died  when  I  was  fifteen,  that 
I  should  have  turned  out  a  more  normal, 
light-hearted  person.  I  should  probably  have  gone  to 
Farmington  with  Phyllis,  and  after  some  years  of  idiotic, 
youthful  philandering  with  life,  should  have  married 
Jim.  Yes,  certainly  I  should  have  married  Jim,  and 
everything  would  have  been  different,  smaller,  quieter, 
more  intimate.  The  terrible  things  would  have  been 
concealed  by  a  familiar  environment  crowded  with  pretty 
objects.  By  the  terrible  things  I  mean  space  and  time 
and  imminent  eternity.  By  pretty  objects  I  mean  houses 
and  yachts  and  babies,  all  the  things  that  fill  the  life  of 
an  American  woman.  American  women  are  given  over  to 
"  things  " —  motor-cars  and  clothes. 

It  is  good  for  a  person  to  be  anchored  to  one  little 
spot.  The  protective  intimacy  of  walls ;  that  is  what 
we  pigmies  all  need  to  keep  us  from  going  to  pieces; 
that  and  some  one  to  be  loyal  to.  Jim  and  I  have  both 
gone  to  pieces  rather.  I  don't  see  why  we  need  have. 
I  can  only  put  it  down  to  the  fact  that  in  the  face  of 
so  much  time  and  distance  I  hadn't  the  courage  of  my 
conviction,  the  conviction  that  was  with  me  through 
my  other  love-affairs.  I  wanted  him  all  the  time,  but 
it  seemed  too  incredible  a  thing,  too  supernatural  an 
instinct  to  govern  one's  conduct.  Yes,  I  had  a  super- 
natural instinct  about  him.  I  remember  the  peculiar 

1 06 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  107 

still  feeling  that  enveloped  me  suddenly  once  in  the 
midst  of  my  frenzy  over  Binky,  when  I  got  a  letter  from 
him.  It  was  such  a  deep,  still  feeling.  I  ought  to  have 
responded  to  it.  I  ought  to  have  thrown  Binky  over 
then  and  there,  at  that  moment,  when  he  came  into 
the  room  smiling  that  bright,  bewildering  smile  of  his. 
I  ought  to  have  had  the  courage  of  the  faith  that  was 
in  me,  but  I  hadn't.  I  had  not  seen  Jim  for  three  years, 
and  his  letter  wasn't  quite  a  proposal,  also  his  hand- 
writing was  stiff,  and  Binky  was  there,  right  there, 
exerting  in  his  effortless  way  that  meaningless  charm 
of  his  that  dazzled  me  so.  It  is  strange  how  one  denies 
reality,  irresistibly.  There  was  always  in  those  days  the 
element  of  fear  and  strangeness  and  perverse  excitement 
in  my  feeling  for  Binky.  I  didn't  analyse  it,  but  I  felt 
it  sufficiently ;  whereas  that  still  rapture  of  recognition  in 
the  mere  thought  of  the  other  one  was  enough  to  tell 
me  that  this  was  the  way  to  go.  I  must  have  realized 
it  all,  for  I  remember  feeling  quite  sick,  just  as  I  used  to 
feel  as  a  child  when  I  lied  to  my  mother;  I  remember 
feeling  just  like  that  when  I  turned  to  Binky,  crumpling 
the  letter  in  my  hand. 

This  incident  is  an  example  of  the  thing  I  am  trying 
so  hard  to  understand  and  express,  in  all  the  writing 
of  these  confessions.  It  represents  the  fatal  facility 
with  which  I  chose  the  wrong  thing,  knowingly  and 
unhappily.  It  represents  the  peculiar  war  going  on 
always  in  myself,  a  struggle  so  inarticulate  and  so  sub- 
dued under  the  padding  of  habit  that  I  scarcely  noticed 
it,  or  rather  that  I  found  I  could  quite  easily  ignore  it. 
My  moral  condition  was  something  like  that  of  a  very 
sleepy  person  wakened  in  the  night  by  the  soft  muffled 
sounds  of  a  struggle  going  on  somewhere  far  away 


io8  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

downstairs.  The  noise  is  so  slight,  and  I  am  so  sleepy, 
that  although  I  know  it  is  a  desperate  fight  between  two 
enemies,  I  still  can  quite  easily  sink  back  into  oblivion 
by  merely  shutting  my  eyes.  Such  seems  to  me  to  be 
the  quality  of  my  spiritual  conflict,  and  my  failures  or 
defeats  were  just  as  real,  but  no  more  vivid  to  me  at 
the  time,  than  the  half-silly  recognition  of  disaster  by 
the  dreamer  who  floats  off  into  sleep  with  a  vague  feeling 
of  depression  too  weak  to  rouse  him.  Long  afterwards, 
of  course,  he  wakes  up,  and  in  the  glaring  light  views  what 
has  happened,  and  wonders  how  he  could  have  allowed  it 
to  be  so. 

What  interests  me  is  this  excessive  sleepiness  of  our 
spirits.  We  are  all  drugged,  and  the  realities  of  the 
soul  are  disguised  under  wads  of  padding,  until  they 
appear  so  grotesque  and  absurd  that  it  becomes  madness 
to  take  them  seriously.  This  is  civilization.  My  mother 
was  not  a  civilized  person.  She  was  a  mystic  to  whom 
the  things  of  the  spirit  appeared  as  grand  and  terrible 
and  concrete.  She  was  a  mystic  to  whom  the  things 
of  the  spirit  appeared  tremendous  and  urgent,  in  just 
the  same  way  as  guns  and  flags  and  battleships  appear 
tremendous  and  urgent  to  Binky.  She  took  God  seriously, 
and  she  took  Him  seriously  in  just  the  same  way  as 
Binky  takes  a  Field-marshal  seriously.  The  will  of  God 
was  to  her  as  explicit  as  any  military  order  ever  was 
to  a  subordinate.  Divine  truth  was  a  study,  no  less 
fascinating,  intricate  and  accurate,  than  a  textbook  on 
artillery  is  to  a  gunner.  It  had  the  same  effect  upon  the 
soul  as  military  discipline  has  upon  conduct.  It  resulted 
in  an  entirely  reliable  specialist,  a  drilled  and  disciplined 
character  to  whom  a  mistake  was  impossible  —  to  whom 
untidiness  of  soul  was  horrible,  to  whom  one  lapse  from 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  109 

duty,  that  is  duty  to  God,  was  attended  by  terrific  con- 
sequences. This  is  splendid.  Its  result  is  the  survival 
of  the  individual's  precious  integrity.  I  know  this.  It 
is  the  one  way  of  standing  up  against  the  onslaught  of 
experience.  I  know  because  I  haven't  done  it.  I  have 
gone  to  pieces,  and  I  have  become  one  of  those  who 
are  amused  or  shocked  by  spiritual  seriousness.  We  are 
afraid  of  intensity,  we  cringe  before  it  as  before  an 
obscene  sight,  and  we  call  it  bad  form.  Truth  is  a 
ridiculous  image  to  Binky  or  a  disquieting  ghost.  I  don't 
mean  that  he  is  a  liar. 

But  I  am  wandering. 

My  mother's  death  gave  my  father  into  my  hands. 
I  felt,  somewhat  arrogantly  and  egotistically  perhaps,  that 
he  was  now  my  chief  responsibility. 

I  did  not  accept  the  fact  of  death  meekly.  I  fought 
it.  In  the  terribly  personal  way  that  I  had  of  taking 
all  impersonal  things,  I  set  all  the  passion  of  my  youth 
against  death,  and  in  the  struggle  between  my  bursting 
heart  and  the  vast,  unruffled  infinite,  my  chidhood  van- 
ished. It  seemed  to  me  that  the  sun  went  out,  that 
the  world  with  all  its  gaieties  and  friendships  was  blotted 
into  darkness ;  and  God  too  dissolved,  with  His  attendant 
fancies  of  a  beatific  Heaven.  You  see,  it  was  im- 
possible to  go  on  hating  Him  as  I  hated  Him  for  killing 
my  mother.  It  was  easier  to  kill  Him  too,  so  I  denied 
His  existence.  It  seemed  the  best  thing  to  do. 

Imperceptibly  and  stealthily,  death  had  stolen  upon 
my  mother,  washing  the  light  from  her  eyes,  and  the 
colour  from  her  hair.  So  slowly  and  gently  did  it  come 
that  we,  without  knowing  how  it  happened,  grew  accus- 
tomed to  hear  her  lying  still  upstairs  on  her  couch,  then 
again  to  her  greater  prostration  in  her  bedroom,  propped 


i  io  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

among  her  large  white  pillows.  The  life  of  the  house 
centred  for  so  long  a  time  about  her  bed  that  we  almost 
forgot  she  had  not  always  been  thus,  lovely  and  frail 
as  a  shell  resting  upon  foam. 

And  it  never  occurred  to  us  that  she  was  going  to 
die.  Her  smile  was  too  bright,  her  little  pretty  ways 
too  appealing,  her  will  too  strong;  and  we  had  a  deep 
instinctive  belief  in  the  partiality  of  fate,  or  as  we  had 
been  taught  to  put  it,  the  loving-kindness  of  God. 
Nothing  terrible  had  ever  happened  to  us  before.  It 
was  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  anything  terrible 
should  happen  now.  As  always  we  played,  romped, 
shouted  (for  she  would  not  have  our  voices  silenced), 
went  to  school  and  came  home,  dragged  our  dirty  boots 
across  her  room,  flung  our  school-books  at  the  foot  of 
her  bed,  and  wrangled  loudly  about  where  we  would  all 
go  next  summer  when  she  was  well. 

Doctors  came  and  went  under  our  unseeing  eyes. 
Nurses  in  uniform  took  up  their  abode  in  our  house, 
and  my  father's  silence  deepened.  Yet  marvellously,  we 
did  not  know,  wrapt  securely  in  the  shell  of  youth,  were 
not  oppressed.  Sometimes,  instead  of  stiffening  into 
hurt  dignity,  Fraulein's  eyes  would  fill  with  tears  when 
we  were  rough  and  disrespectful,  and  she  would  fling 
her  arms  around  us  with  unaccustomed  emotion.  This 
disquieted  us  a  little,  but  we  put  it  down  to  the  vagaries 
of  the  German  temperament. 

Then  —  it  came  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 
Out  of  a  terrible,  confused  dream  I  saw  the  white-capped 
head  of  a  nurse  leaning  over  me. 

"  Your  father  has  sent  for  you  to  come  to  your  mother's 
room." 

Dumb,  shivering,  I  crept  out  of  bed,  and  met  Jerry, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  m 

Bud,  and  Dick  on  the  stairs,  bleary-eyed  with  sleep, 
stumbling  along  in  their  slippers.  From  behind  the  closed 
door  of  Fraulein's  room  came  the  sound  of  sobbing. 
A  strange,  terrible  presence  seemed  to  float  with  us  down 
the  stairs.  An  inexpressible  terror  held  us  in  its  grip 
as  we  stole  into  mother's  room. 

The  light  was  turned  low,  and  by  the  bed  knelt  my 
father,  motionless,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  worn,  lovely 
head  that  lay  so  still.  There  was  a  strange  smell  in 
the  room,  a  sickening  hospital  smell.  A  doctor  stood 
a  little  away,  under  the  light.  The  other  doctors  were 
beyond  the  boudoir  door,  and  the  presence  of  these 
strangers  seemed  to  set  the  seal  upon  the  horror  of  it 
all,  seemed  to  make  death  actual,  hideous,  and  profes- 
sional. If  she  could  only  be  left  alone  with  us  —  we 
loved  her,  we  would  keep  her  somehow  —  we  would  beat 
back  that  thing. 

My  father  didn't  seem  to  notice  us  standing  dumbly 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  A  nurse  touched  him  on  the 
shoulder,  and  he  moved  ever  so  little,  beckoning  us  to 
come  nearer.  The  waxen  face  on  the  pillow  was  turned 
towards  us,  but  the  eyes  were  closed. 

"  Dear  —  the  children,"  said  my  father's  voice.  The 
eyelids  flickered.  The  lips  parted.  We  waited  a  long, 
long  time.  How  like  a  child  she  had  sometimes  seemed 
to  us,  and  now  it  was  as  though  she  were  the  youngest 
of  us  all,  just  a  very  little  girl.  The  lips  moved  again. 

"  It  is  so  beautiful  —  you  must  all  come."  It  was 
as  though  a  swiftly  dipping  wing  had  touched  her  face 
with  unearthly  light;  and  as  I  realized  that  she  was 
already  far  away,  separated  for  ever  from  our  aching 
reality,  tasting  of  an  ineffable  bliss  at  the  moment  of 
our  poor  agony,  I  was  all  at  once  consumed  with  hatred 


ii2  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

for  God.  I  wanted  to  throw  myself  on  my  knees  and 
scream  out.  Her  strange  ecstatic  words  were  so  cruel, 
and  He  had  put  them  into  her  mouth.  She  was 
going  to  Him,  just  as  she  had  said  so  many  times  she 
would  go,  and  He  was  not  even  allowing  her  to  want 
to  stay  with  us.  It  seemed  to  me  now  that  this  had 
always  been  the  reason  for  our  unhappiness.  God  had 
always  been  getting  between  her  and  us,  and  now  He 
was  doing  it  again  once  and  for  all. 

A  deeper  stillness  had  settled  upon  her  face.  I  stood 
beside  my  father  a  long  time.  So  still  he  was,  as  still 
as  the  figure  on  the  bed.  They  were  both  so  still,  and 
the  invisible  cord  of  sympathy  that  held  them  together 
was  loosening.  She  would  escape  him  utterly,  she  was 
escaping  now.  A  terror  for  him  seized  me.  The  min- 
utes seemed  to  drop  into  the  silence  like  drops  of  water, 
and  melt  away.  They  were  dropping  one  by  one,  all 
the  minutes  of  her  life,  and  when  they  had  all  melted 
away  she  would  be  gone. 

The  nurse  came  to  take  me  away,  but  I  slipped  into 
his  room  instead  of  going  upstairs,  and  knelt  down  on 
the  floor  against  the  door  to  wait,  I  don't  know  why. 
Hate  and  fear  were  in  my  heart.  Something  noiseless, 
invisible,  and  relentless  was  doing  its  work  in  that  room. 
I  had  a  glimpse  of  the  great  void,  the  boundless,  imper- 
sonal universe  in  which  I  was  an  atom,  helpless,  doomed, 
of  no  account. 

My  feet  were  very  cold.  I  shivered  on  the  floor, 
taking  a  certain  pleasure  in  my  own  discomfort;  and 
I  went  on  hating  God.  He  had  been  put  so  clearly 
before  my  eyes,  as  a  person,  a  kind,  loving  Heavenly 
Father,  that  it  was  quite  natural  now  for  me  to  feel 
murderously  towards  Him. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  113 

I  must  have  fallen  asleep.  A  pair  of  arms  lifted  me 
from  the  floor.  I  realized  that  my  father  was  carrying 
me  upstairs,  and  that,  therefore,  my  mother  must  be 
dead.  She  had  escaped  him.  We  were  two  helpless 
things  in  the  grip  of  God,  and  I  loved  him  and  he  was 
separated  from  me.  He  put  me  into  bed  and  tucked 
the  blanket  round  me,  automatically,  as  if  he  were  moving 
in  his  sleep.  I  dared  not  speak  to  him,  his  face  looked 
queer  and  grey ;  I  heard  him  go  out  of  the  room  and 
down  the  stairs,  I  held  my  breath  to  listen  for  his  foot- 
steps, his  faint  footsteps  in  the  terrible  forsaken  house. 

The  three  days  that  followed  were  a  blur  of  crepe 
and  flowers,  of  hushed  voices  and  stealthy  feet.  My 
father  sat  hour  after  hour  in  my  mother's  room.  Each 
time  he  came  out  there  was  a  greyer  tinge  upon  his 
face,  as  though  it  were  covered  with  soot ;  yet  he  shaved 
carefully  every  morning,  came  down  to  breakfast  and 
sat  with  the  unopened  newspaper  in  his  hand,  watching 
us,  gently  and  absently,  and  now  and  then  he  took  a  gulp 
of  coffee. 

Automatically  he  went  through  the  ordinary  daily 
routine  of  the  house.  There  was  something  terrible  and 
humble  about  his  punctilious  performance  of  his  duties. 
A  woman  would  have  behaved  very  differently,  would 
have  found  a  vent  for  her  agony  somehow,  but  he 
couldn't  take  to  his  bed  or  weep,  or  call  a  doctor  to 
give  him  sedatives,  he  must  just  go  on  living  as  usual. 
Something  within  him  could  not  give  way.  Only  his 
voice  seemed  to  have  given  out.  He  could  not  speak. 
When  necessity  demanded  speech,  it  came  through  his 
moustache  in  a  hoarse,  halting  whisper. 

The  boys  couldn't  keep  up  the  strain  imposed.  For 
a  day  they  sat  in  a  huddled  group  on  the  stairs,  then 


ii4  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

they  had  to  dissimulate.  Behind  closed  doors,  shame- 
facedly and  solemnly,  they  played  marbles  and  read 
story-books.  Once  Jerry  forgot  and  shouted,  naturally, 
the  sudden  yelp  of  youth,  whereupon  I  flew  into  the 
room,  slapped  his  face  and  burst  into  violent  tears. 

"  You  brutes,  you  horrid  brutes !  How  can  you  laugh  ? 
Don't  you  care  for  anything?"  I  stormed,  sobbing 
angrily. 

"  I  didn't  laugh,"  growled  Jerry,  and  I  flung  out  again. 
t  suppose  they  felt  I  was  right,  for  they  put  away  their 
distractions  dejectedly,  with  awe  in  their  hearts  for  the 
superior  sensibilities  of  women. 

Still,  I  didn't  blame  them  much,  my  anger  had  been  a 
sudden  crise  de  nerfs.  They  were  only  boys.  Besides, 
they  didn't  love  father  the  way  I  did. 

Maybe  I  was  vain  of  my  love  for  him.  Maybe  I 
exaggerated  it.  If  it  had  been  the  marvellous  thing  I 
thought  it,  I  couldn't  have  hurt  him  so,  in  the  end,  could 
I  ?  No,  I  must  have  deluded  myself ;  I  never  loved  him 
half  enough.  When  it  came  to  a  choice  between  him 
and  something  I  really  wanted,  I  took  that  and  gave 
him  up.  My  staying  at  home  with  him,  instead  of  going 
away  to  school,  wasn't  really  done  for  him,  wasn't 
altogether  unselfish.  I  suspect  that  it  was  a  piece  of 
romantic  self-indulgence.  Doubtless  it  seemed  to  me  a 
creditable  and  sweetly  filial  thing  to  do.  Also,  it  gave  me 
a  feeling  of  maturity,  and  I  liked  to  feel  old. 

I  don't  mean  that  I  was  entirely  sentimental  in  the 
matter.  If  that  had  been  the  case,  I  couldn't  have  stuck 
it  out  after  all  the  excitement  was  over.  And  I  was 
extremely  sensitive  to  his  feelings,  his  moods,  his  wishes. 
That  must  have  meant  that  I  loved  him  to  some  extent. 
I  like  to  think  that  it  did.  The  thought  comforts  me 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  115 

a  little.  I  remember  that  all  my  strength  seemed  gathered 
together  into  a  knot  of  acute  sensation  of  agony,  on  the 
day  of  the  funeral.  My  mother  was  put  into  the  family 
vault,  and  as  the  coffin  slid  into  place,  he  gave  one  queer, 
tearing  sob,  that  seemed  to  shiver  through  the  whole 
world,  and  I  fainted.  The  sound  of  it  made  me  faint. 
I  don't  know  how.  I  had  a  blurred  vision  of  many  faces, 
of  many  eyes  all  turned  towards  the  mouth  that  had 
swallowed  the  coffin,  and  at  the  same  instant,  on  my 
father's  cry,  everything  went  blank. 

I  want  to  think  that  it  wasn't  just  a  lack  of  food 
and  sleep,  and  the  three  days  of  funeral  preparations, 
and  the  standing  on  my  feet  while  being  fitted  for  black 
clothes,  and  the  long,  slow  drive  in  the  closed  carriage, 
that  made  me  faint  then.  It  couldn't  have  been  just 
that,  else  why  did  I  faint  at  the  instant  he  cried,  when 
I  was  in  fresh  air?  No,  I  want  to  think  that  it  was  really 
a  sudden  sense  of  his  agony  that  stopped  my  heart.  As 
I  say,  the  thought  comforts  me. 

The  next  day,  when  they  told  me  that  we,  the  boys 
and  I,  were  to  go  down  to  the  farm,  I  refused.  I  worked 
myself  into  a  fever,  my  temperature  went  up  to  101 
degrees,  and  even  when  they  told  me  my  father  wanted 
me  to  go  I  said  I  wouldn't.  I  got  my  way.  The  boys 
went  off,  Jerry  and  Bud,  to  the  farm,  Dick  back  to  school, 
and  I  was  left.  I  didn't  leave  my  father  from  that  day 
until  I  was  married  to  Binky. 

There  was  nothing  spectacular  about  his  grief.  He 
gave  no  sign,  scarcely  any  sign  of  what  was  going  on 
in  him.  Only  his  face  grew  greyer  and  more  rigid  with 
the  effort  to  control  the  convulsing  struggle  of  his  mind. 
and  his  movements  grew  timid  and  still,  as  though  he 
could  not  trust  freedom  to  his  hand,  and  he  was  silent. 


u6  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

His  struggle  for  sanity  went  on  in  silence,  buried  far 
beneath  his  silence  and  the  accurate  automatism  of  his 
habits.  I  didn't  know  or  understand,  but  I  was  fright- 
ened, and  something  warned  me  to  keep  away,  to  keep 
still.  He  didn't  speak.  I  don't  think  he  spoke  for  ten 
days  after  the  burying  of  my  mother.  He  would  walk 
up  and  down  the  hall,  up  and  down,  up  and  down;  and 
I  would  crouch  on  the  stairs  watching  him,  wishing 
hysterically  that  I  could  pray.  I  couldn't  pray  because  I 
had  thrown  over  God.  There  was,  I  reasoned  obstinately, 
no  one  to  pray  to;  but  I  remember  a  distinct  desire 
for  a  string  of  beads,  a  desire  to  mumble  prayers  on 
a  string  of  beads.  Then  my  father  would  go  up  to  his 
room,  and  I  would  watch  him  through  the  door  as  he 
took  out  his  patience  cards,  start  to  lay  them  out  on 
the  table,  and  stop.  He  never  got  further  than  laying 
out  two  rows.  He  would  stop  and  stare  at  the  table 
and  sit  a  long  time  staring.  I  remember  it  seemed 
uncanny  to  me  that  three  times  he  stopped  at  the  queen 
of  spades,  and  then  I  noticed  that  he  always  stopped 
when  the  queen  of  spades  turned  up.  I  used  to  go  in 
and  stand  quite  close  behind  him,  but  he  was  unaware 
of  my  presence.  Once  I  found  him  standing  in  the 
library  with  a  lighted  match  held  an  inch  or  two  before 
his  face,  just  where  the  tip  of  a  cigar  would  have  been, 
but  there  was  no  cigar  between  his  lips,  and  his  eyes 
were  fixed.  He  stood  like  that,  motionless  except  for 
a  slight  sucking  or  puffing  motion  of  the  mouth,  until 
the  match  burned  down  to  his  fingers  and  went  out.  The 
sensation  of  the  flame  that  perhaps  burned  his  finger 
made  him  drop  his  hand,  and  he  began  slowly  to  walk 
up  and  down  again.  I  was  very  much  frightened.  It 
was  like  seeing  a  ghost.  I  must  have  grown  hysterical 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  117 

and  queer  after  this,  for  a  struggle  seemed  to  begin 
between  me  and  the  silence ;  my  father's  silence,  and  the 
silence  that  spread  from  him  through  the  house.  I  felt 
that  the  silence  became  alive,  menacing,  full  of  dreadful, 
grotesque  things. 

You  see  I  was  righting  God  too  all  this  time.  I  kept 
saying  over  and  over  to  myself,  that  if  God  was  God  He 
was  omnipotent,  and  personally  responsible  for  all 
wickedness  and  all  sorrow.  Therefore  He  must  be  either 
cruel  and  wicked  or  the  dupe  of  the  devil,  who  made  it 
impossible  for  Him  to  do  what  He  liked.  This  was 
inconceivable.  Therefore  He  was  inconceivable.  He 
didn't  exist.  It  was  the  same  old  question,  simple 
enough,  just  the  same  old  rock  on  which  Christianity  has 
split,  over  which  so  many  absurd  storms  of  theology  have 
raged,  the  incompatible  equation  of  a  holy  and  merciful 
God  and  sin  and  suffering. 

I  am  sure  that  my  father  felt  something  of  the  same 
sort  of  thing.  He  would  have  believed  if  he  could,  for 
my  mother's  sake,  I  know.  That  separation  of  his  mind 
from  hers  must  have  been  very  terrible  to  him.  It 
must  have  constituted  for  him  a  very  cruel  temptation. 
He  could  have  united  himself  with  her  in  Heaven,  by 
one  little  disgraceful  act  of  will.  Her  belief  that  they 
would  be  reunited  after  death  must  have  become  added 
agony  to  him,  when  he  was  facing  the  loneliness  of  death 
and  nothingness. 

I  must  have  understood  something  of  what  was  going 
on  in  his  mind  during  those  days.  Two  voices  out  of 
his  silence  seemed  to  speak  to  me.  One  told  me  to 
keep  away,  the  other  begged  me  to  come  to  him  in  spite 
of  that  forbidding  barrier  of  grief.  Finally,  one  night 
as  I  lay  in  the  dark  thinking,  miserable,  frightened, 


ii8  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

and  lonely,  I  heard  two  of  the  servants  talking  outside 
my  door.  "  I  can't  stand  it.  I'm  going  to  give  notice," 
said  one.  "  He'll  go  off  his  head,"  whispered  another. 
I  jumped  out  of  bed,  flew  by  them  and  downstairs 
without  pausing.  I  rushed  to  his  room,  flung  myself 
into  his  arms  and  began  to  sob  loudly  and  more  loudly. 
I  remember  the  delicious  relief  of  that  crying,  of  making 
that  noise.  He  pulled  a  quilt  from  his  bed  and  wrapped 
it  round  me.  He  chafed  my  bare  feet.  I  cried  on  and 
on,  luxuriously. 

"  There,  there,  Joan  darling,"  he  murmured.  What 
an  acute  ecstasy  of  pain  and  joy  those  words  gave  me ! 
I  had  a  perfect  orgy  of  weeping.  My  self-indulgence 
was  good  for  both  of  us,  and  after  a  time  I  upbraided 
him,  straining  him  hungrily,  to  feel  his  firm  shoulder  and 
smell  his  face. 

"  You  wouldn't  spea-k  to  me,"  I  scolded.  "  You  must 
talk,  you  mustn't  keep  me  away.  I'm  too  frightened, 
too  frightened."  I  didn't  realize  what  I  was  doing,  other- 
wise I  should  never  have  dared  put  things  into  words. 
"  Mother's  gone.  God's  gone.  There  isn't  any  Heaven, 
or  anything  after.  I  know,  I  know.  I  hate  it.  I'm 
frightened." 

"  Joan  darling,  my  poor  little  girl !  "  Oh,  the  delicious 
nearness  of  him.  I  lay  still  in  his  arms,  and  gradually 
the  same  shyness  that  always  has  been  between  us,  came 
over  me  again,  but  I  had  had  the  one  outburst  that  made 
us  companions  in  experience. 


CHAPTER  NINE 

I  DIDN'T  see  much  of  Jim  during  the  three  years 
after  his  mother's  divorce.  He  came  home  for 
the  holidays  one  Christmas,  but  he  didn't  go  to 
any  of  our  parties.  Still,  though  he  never  talked  to  me 
about  her,  I  have  gathered  a  very  definite  impression 
as  to  how  her  adventure  affected  him.  I  know  that  when 
he  came  of  age,  just  after  his  father's  horrid  death,  he 
went  at  once  abroad  to  see  her,  and  I  believe  he  would 
have  kept  in  touch  with  her  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Louise 
and  Mrs.  Bowers.  It  wasn't,  of  course,  the  kind  of 
thing  that  they  would  encourage.  Louise  told  me  that 
soon  after  they  were  married  he  asked  her  to  go  with 
him  to  Italy,  and  she  refused.  She  didn't  want  to  get 
within  a  thousand  miles  of  that  villa  at  Sorrento.  It's 
difficult  to  understand,  but  I  rather  think  she  was  afraid 
that  his  mother  would  get  money  out  of  him,  and  so 
she  took  a  scandalized,  virtuous  line,  and  Jim  gave  in. 
He  never  broached  the  subject  to  her  again.  I  imagine 
he  forgave  her  heartlessness,  almost,  because  he  actually 
did  care  so  much  about  keeping  his  wife  immaculate. 
His  father's  disgraceful  death,  which  he  connected  with 
Mrs.  Van  Orden's  faithlessness,  gave  him  a  terror  of 
liberty.  You  can  see  how  he  must  have  suffered,  loving 
his  mother  as  he  did,  and  yet  having  to  blame  her  for 
his  father's  disintegration.  I  can  imagine  the  thoughts 
that  passed  through  his  mind  while  he  watched  that 

119 


120  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

wretched  man  dying  of  delirium  tremens.  I  can  almost 
forgive  him  his  rigid  insistence  on  conventions.  Con- 
ventionality, appearing  to  him  a  safeguard,  came  to  be 
an  obsession  with  him.  I  believe  Louise's  perfect  brand 
of  it  was  one  of  the  things  that  attracted  him  to  her. 
He  was  athirst  with  the  desire  for  purity,  and  he  thought 
it  existed  in  conventionality.  Poor  dear !  I've  no  doubt, 
too,  that  my  wildness  caused  him  misgivings.  He  once 
said  I  reminded  him  of  his  mother.  He  hadn't  the  cour- 
age to  love  me,  not  until  it  was  too  late.  I  don't  blame  him. 
I  understand  the  awful  fuddle  of  his  mind  during  those 
three  years  when  he  was  growing  into  a  man.  I  under- 
stand the  futile  questionings,  the  baffled  dreams,  the  lone- 
liness of  his  poor,  passionate  spirit.  He  tried  religion.  Dick 
told  me  that  one  year  at  Yale  he,  Jim,  had  a  Bible  Class. 
It  seems  so  funny  and  pathetic.  I  see  those  sweet  boys 
seriously  trying  to  find  out  from  the  Bible  what  it  was 
they  wanted  out  of  life.  Perhaps  he  did  find  something 
there,  but  if  he  trusted  God  for  a  bit,  his  father's  death 
spoiled  that  for  him.  Our  experiences  were  somewhat 
the  same  in  that  way,  only  his  were  worse. 

When  I  was  eighteen  I  went  to  the  "  Yale  Prom." 
Jim  invited  me,  and  Dick  asked  Sally  Comstock.  Phyllis 
was  at  home  taking  care  of  the  family.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  Mrs.  Day's  illness.  Louise  was  in  her 
convent  in  Paris,  so  Sally  and  I  went  together,  and  my 
father  chaperoned  us.  I  am  glad  now  of  that  "  Yale 
Prom."  It  is  wonderful  to  me  to  think  how  happy 
I  was;  of  the  quite  perfect  delight  of  those  four  days. 
We  arrived  in  New  Haven  on  Saturday  afternoon  with 
a  whole  train-load  of  other  girls,  all  sparkling,  chattering, 
fluffy,  curly,  dimpled,  dainty  creatures,  all  with  nothing 
in  their  heads  but  the  idea  of  having  a  good  time,  and 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  121 

with  little  delicate  sentimental  loves  in  their  sweet  hearts 
for  the  young  men  who  were  their  hosts.  I  can  imagine 
nothing  more  delicious  and  innocent  than  the  romance 
of  that  week-end,  than  the  three  or  four  hundred  little 
romances  that  made  up  the  joyous  crowd.  I  love 
America  for  the  beautiful  fun  it  allows  to  young  people. 
From  Saturday  to  Wednesday  we  kept  it  up.  We 
danced  all  night,  we  laughed  and  sang  and  flirted  lightly, 
and  went  to  luncheons  and  teas  in  college  rooms,  all 
day.  Of  course,  we  didn't  dance  on  Sunday  night.  On 
Sunday  night  we  received  in  Dick's  rooms,  and  some 
fifty  young  men  came  in  to  pay  court  to  us,  and  Sally 
and  I  queened  it  for  three  hours,  while  my  father  sat 
in  a  corner  smoking  and  watching  and  sometimes 
laughing  aloud  with  us.  I  remember  so  vividly  that 
room  with  its  Turkish  divans,  its  college  banners,  its 
dim  lamps,  the  wood  fire  in  the  large  fireplace,  the 
many  slim  forms  of  young  men  lounging  about,  and  Jim 
electrically  there  in  the  midst  of  them  looking  at  me 
deeply  now  and  then.  Conversation  died  down  about 
ten  o'clock,  and  all  but  half  a  dozen  boys  whom  we 
knew  well,  went  away,  and  then  we  sat  for  an  hour  in 
the  firelight  on  the  floor,  singing.  We  sang  all  the 
college  tunes  and  negro  melodies  that  we  knew,  and 
some  favourites  like  "  Kentucky  Babe,"  and  "  Bring 
the  Wagon  Home,  John,"  and  "  Mandy  Lee,"  we  sang 
over  and  over  again,  with  wonderful  variations  in  the 
harmony.  Jim  and  Dick  sang  tenor,  Tommy  Dodge  and 
George  Armstrong  bass,  Sally  and  I  alto,  and  the  rest 
carried  the  air.  We  sang  on  and  on,  while  the  birch- 
logs  crumbled  in  the  grate  and  our  hearts  thrilled  with 
vague  emotion.  I  remember  feeling  then  quite  sure 
that  I  was  going  to  marry  Jim,  and  when  at  last  he 


122  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

and  Dick  had  walked  back  with  us  through  the  clear, 
cold  night,  and  said  good-bye  at  the  door  of  our  hotel, 
I  kissed  my  father  all  tremulously  and  flew  up  with 
Sally  to  bed.  where  I  told  her  just  how  much  I  was  in 
love. 

But  of  course,  the  great  ball  on  Tuesday  night,  the 
Promenade  itself,  was  the  event  of  the  week.  I  danced 
one  hundred  and  twenty  dances,  forty  of  them  with 
Jim.  There  were  two  bands  playing  alternately,  so 
that  one  didn't  have  any  intermissions  unless  one  wanted, 
and  I  didn't.  At  six  o'clock  my  slippers  were  in  ribbons, 
and  I  hobbled  blissfully  back  with  the  rest  of  our  little 
group  to  Jim's  breakfast  rooms  for  breakfast.  My  poor 
father  had,  of  course,  stuck  it  out,  and  was  still  with 
us,  yawning  dreadfully;  but  we  kept  it  up  hilariously 
over  our  coffee  and  eggs,  kept  it  up  until  we  were  on 
the  train  for  home.  Jim  had  given  me  a  bunch  of  violets 
every  day  that  covered  the  whole  front  of  my  coat,  and 
I  carried  the  last  bunch  all  the  way  back  to  Iroquois 
and  pressed  a  few  of  them  carefully  in  a  book.  It 
seemed  to  me  I  could  never  be  so  happy  again,  and  I 
never  have  been.  I  was  sure,  so  sure,  that  we  loved 
each  other,  Jim  and  I.  The  interval  between  that 
"  Prom  "  week  and  the  following  summer,  when  he  came 
yachting  with  us  for  a  fortnight,  was  spent  in  thinking 
of  him.  I  embroidered  sofa-cushions  and  knitted  neck- 
ties for  him,  and  I  wrote  poetry,  not  about  him,  but 
about  the  moon  and  silver  birch-trees,  and  being  in  love. 
I  used  to  read  the  Song  of  Solomon  over  and  over,  and 
I  got  through  most  of  Browning  and  Shelley,  and  Keats, 
and  Byron,  and  learned  the  "  Sonnets  to  the  Portuguese  " 
by  heart.  I  don't  know  if  my  father  realized  what  was 
the  matter  with  me.  I  suppose  he  did.  We  lived  very 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  123 

much  together,  and  though  we  didn't  talk  a  great  deal, 
I  know  that  he  must  have  read  many  of  my  thoughts. 
One  evening,  I  remember,  when  I  kissed  him  good- 
night, he  took  my  face  in  his  hands  and  looked  at  it 
intently. 

"Am  I  like  mother?"  I  asked. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Not  very."  There  was  a 
curious,  grave  look  in  his  face,  a  look  almost  of  appre- 
hension. "  You  will  have  to  take  care,"  he  said  strangely. 

"Take  care?" 

I  waited  for  him  to  say  more,  but  he  only  took  me 
in  his  arms-  more  abruptly  than  usual,  in  a  tighter  hug, 
and  then  with  a  "  There,  darling,  run  up  to  bed,"  he 
turned  away.  I  looked  down  on  him  from  the  dim 
stairs,  half-way  up.  He  was  standing  by  the  hall  fire, 
with  his  head  bent,  and  his  hands  as  usual  clasped  behind 
him.  It  was  impossible  to  know  what  he  was  thinking. 
The  silence  into  which  he  had  lapsed  was  profound  and 
palpable.  I  went  on  up  to  my  room,  and  turning  on 
all  the  lights  stared  at  myself  in  the  glass.  I  was  pleas- 
urably  impressed  by  my  father's  concern.  It  was  inter- 
esting to  feel  that  there  was  something  dangerous  in 
my  make-up,  and  I  was  a  little  disappointed  to  find  the 
same  small  white  face  staring  back  at  me.  I  pulled  my 
hair  down  over  my  forehead  in  a  curly  tangle,  and 
looked  at  myself  in  deep  affection.  And  I  succeeded,  to 
my  mind,  in  looking  very  wicked  and  fascinating.  I 
smiled  at  myself,  and  simpered  and  frowned.  I  longed 
for  jewellery  to  play  with,  but  I  had  no  jewellery.  It 
was  all  very  silly,  and  by  the  time  I  was  ready  for  bed 
I  was  ashamed  of  myself,  and  in  a  sudden  revulsion 
of  feeling  ran  down  to  my  father's  room  in  my  dressing- 
gown.  He  was  playing  patience.  He  always  played 


124  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

patience  at  night,  and  as  I  flung  myself  on  him  I  remem- 
ber hating  those  little  cards  with  their  red  and  black 
spots,  and  a  terrible  feeling  of  the  waste  of  it  all  and 
the  loneliness  came  over  me.  I  was  jealous  for  him 
and  ambitious.  His  languor  and  his  indifference  appalled 
me.  It  seemed  to  me  he  should  be  doing  great  things 
in  the  world.  What  things?  In  what  world?  I  don't 
know. 

Jim  Van  Orden  was  certainly  very  attractive  that 
summer  when  we  all  went  yachting  together.  He  was 
sunburned,  and  his  hair,  against  the  warm  tan  of  his 
face,  was  golden,  and  his  eyes  were  very  blue,  and  his 
small  body  was  very  graceful  and  strong  in  its  white 
flannels. 

My  father's  yacht,  the  Minnehaha,  was  put  into  com- 
mission in  June  in  New  York  Harbour.  She  was  a 
very  pretty  little  schooner,  with  room  for  a  dozen  young 
people.  He  was  his  own  skipper  with  a  crew  of  eight 
sailors.  We  cruised  up  the  coast  that  summer,  stopping 
at  various  bright,  frivolous  places  like  Narragansett  Pier, 
Manchester-by-the-Sea,  as  far  as  Bar  Harbour.  Jim 
joined  us  about  the  middle  of  August.  I  remember 
those  days  of  golden  sunshine  and  sapphire  seas  and 
fresh,  sweet  winds.  Phyllis  was  with  us  then,  and  Jerry 
and  Bud  and  Dick,  and  others  came  and  went,  hopping 
on  and  off  at  different  yacht  clubs  and  piers  in  sandy 
harbours.  My  lasting  impression  of  those  days  is  one 
of  delicious  salt  smells,  the  smell  of  the  sea  and  of  sea- 
weed and  tar  and  fish  and  steaming  clams. 

I  remember  best  of  all  the  last  day  Jim  was  with  us. 
We  had  been  becalmed  off  Cape  Cod  somewhere,  and 
had  gone  ashore  in  the  launch.  It  was  a  funny  little 
place  of  scattered  huts  and  bathing  boxes,  where  marshes 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  125 

came  down  to  the  beach.  A  long,  very  dilapidated  pier 
stuck  out  into  the  sea,  with  a  funny  cabin  on  it  where 
sailors  could  buy  rope  and  fishing-tackle  and  lobsters 
and  salt  pork  and  cheese.  Jim  and  I  bought  cheese  and 
biscuits  from  the  old  sailor  there,  and  went  out  to  the 
end  of  the  pier  and  sat  down,  dangling  our  legs  over 
the  still  water.  The  sun  was  bright  and  hot,  and  the 
white  sails  of  ships,  becalmed,  flapped  loosely  in  the  har- 
bour. A  square-rigged  lumber  schooner  afar  out  seemed 
to  have  caught  a  vagrant  breeze,  and  was  moving  slowly 
southward,  all  sails  set.  I  could  see  my  father  sitting 
under  the  awning  on  the  deck  of  the  Minnehaha.  Phyllis 
and  the  others  had  gone  to  play  golf  at  the  little  club 
across  the  marshes.  I  was  very  happy  sitting  there  in 
the  sun  with  Jim,  eating  yellow  cheese  and  biscuits.  The 
sun  made  us  blink  and  feel  pleasantly  sleepy.  The  tide 
was  going  out,  and  we  could  see  the  clam-diggers  farther 
down  the  shore  digging  in  the  mud,  their  trousers  rolled 
up  to  their  knees. 

"  You're  going  abroad  in  October,  aren't  you  ?  "  asked 
Jim,  after  a  long,  sleepy  pause. 

"  Yes." 

"  When  are  you  coming  back?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

He  cut  me  another  bit  of  cheese  off  the  large  hunk  with 
his  penknife. 

"  It's  been  great  —  this  cruise,"  he  ventured. 

I   nodded. 

"  I  suppose  you  will  come  back  —  look  here,  you're  not 
going  to  stay  ?  " 

"Gracious   goodness,    what   should   I   stay   for?" 
looked   at  him.     His   face  flushed,  and  his  eyes  grew 
dark. 


ia6  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  Promise  you'll  come  home  in  a  year  —  two  at 
most." 

I  laughed.     "Of  course  I'm  coming  home  in  a  year." 

I  was  trembling  with  excitement.  I  waited  for  him 
to  say  it.  I  waited  happily,  fervently.  I  was  eighteen 
and  he  was  twenty.  I  wanted  to  be  engaged  to  him  right 
at  once,  that  minute.  He  hesitated,  and  I  grew  angry. 
I  threw  my  cheese  into  the  water,  and  turning,  kissed 
him  somewhere  near  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  We  were 
in  full  view  of  all  the  sandy,  sunny,  clam-digging  world 
and  of  the  yacht  of  my  father.  I  don't  know  why  I  kissed 
him  like  that.  He  grabbed  my  shoulders  and  kissed  me 
back  clumsily  and  shyly  and  fiercely,  but  it  stopped  him. 
it  upset  him  and  frightened  him.  In  another  minute  we 
were  both  uncomfortable  and  embarrassed.  I  got  up, 
shaking  the  crumbs  out  of  my  skirts  and  jamming  my  hat 
down  over  my  eyes. 

"Joan,"  he  muttered  huskily.  I  turned  my  back.  It 
was  impossible  to  look  into  his  face. 

"  Come  on,"  I  said  angrily,  and  walked  off  down  the 
pier. 

That  night  we  all  sat  on  the  deck  in  the  moonlight 
singing  to  Jerry's  banjo  —  and  the  next  morning  Jim  went 
away. 

He  went  away  without  saying  anything  more  to  me 
except  that  I  had  promised  to  come  back  in  a  year. 
"  I  never  promised,"  I  said,  laughing  at  him  with  a  sick 
little  feeling  inside  me.  I  watched  his  white  figure  going 
off  in  the  tender.  He  was  to  take  the  train  and  go  West 
to  Jim  Armstrong's  ranch  for  a  fortnight  before  college 
opened.  He  had  one  more  year  at  Yale.  That  was  the 
last  I  saw  of  him  for  five  years. 


PART  TWO 


CHAPTER  ONE 

THEY  all  called  him  "  Binky."  It  seemed  to 
me  a  dazzling  impertinence.  I  felt  that  how- 
ever much  I  might  long  to  imitate  their  terse 
and  flippant  familiarity,  I  would  never  be  able  to  call 
him  Binky,  and  the  ease  with  which  they  did  it,  all  of 
them  —  Molly  Tripp  and  Mrs.  Hobbes  and  all  the  rest 
—  removed  them  miles  from  me.  I  could  never  acquire 
the  dry,  reckless  tone  of  these  English  army  people ; 
and  how  fascinating  it  was !  Yes,  it  seemed  to  me  witty 
and  fascinating.  How  young  I  was,  how  gullible  I  must 
have  been,  how  utterly  romantic!  A  group  of  weary, 
stupid,  plucky  women,  and  their  soldier  men,  living  in 
exile,  poised  giddily  on  the  edge  of  a  great  enigma ; 
and  taking  it  all  in  the  well-bred  British  way,  simply 
refusing  to  admit  the  existence  of  the  horrid  fact ;  these 
seemed  to  me  wonderful  people.  You  see,  they 
had  a  quality  that  was  new  to  me,  the  quality 
of  extreme  boredom,  of  well-regulated,  disciplined  bore- 
dom. They  didn't  care  a  hang  about  either  God  or  the 
devil.  A  nickname  for  the  Almighty  would  have  perched 
as  easily  as  Binky  on  their  lips ;  only,  they  never  thought 
about  the  Almighty.  He  didn't  bother  them.  They  had 
succeeded  ages  ago  in  staring  Him  out  of  existence. 
Their  main  occupation  now  was  in  staring  life  out  of 
countenance.  This  perfect  and  assured  flippancy  made 
them  seem  to  me  infinitely  superior,  so  secure  and  un- 
approachable as  to  be  mysterious. 

139 


130  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  must  have  been  at  that  time  incredibly  enthusiastic. 

I  was  nineteen.  My  father  and  I  had  been  travelling 
round  the  world,  and  we  came  on  them,  the  dangerous 
Mrs.  Hobbes,  and  little  wizened  Molly  Tripp,  who  jingled 
all  over  with  jewellery  like  a  pedlar's  cart,  and  Ruffles, 
whom  I  hated  wistfully,  and  Binky,  who  seemed  to  me 
a  god,  and  all  the  rest,  in  a  little  dusty  place  near  the 
Afghan  frontier.  I  was  full  of  the  poetry  and  colour 
that  I  had  been  imbibing,  ripe  for  romance  and  for  adven- 
ture—  dangefously,  deliciously  ripe  for  adventure.  I 
was  very  happy.  I  loved  everybody  and  everything, 
myself  included;  my  eyelashes  and  my  nose  gave  me 
extreme  pleasure.  I  had  some  ravishing  clothes  which 
delighted  my  heart;  I  remember  one  gauzy  pink  thing  in 
which  I  had  five  different  proposals  in  as  many  differ- 
ent languages. 

And  it  was  right  into  the  midst  of  this  clear,  if  shallow, 
pool  of  happiness  that  they  dropped  their  rubbish.  They 
used  me;  they  gave  me  their  unclean  leavings.  Even 
Binky  didn't  give  me  anything  new  and  first-class  in 
the  way  of  feeling;  he  hadn't  it  to  give.  It  had  all  been 
used.  It  was  all  second-hand;  it  all  had  the  mark  of 
the  other  woman  on  it. 

I  didn't  know  at  the  time.  I  scarcely  suspected. 
People  like  that  were  beyond  my  comprehension.  I 
had  been  constantly  with  my  father  for  three  years.  I 
knew  only  his  fine,  simple  nature;  I  didn't  know  there 
was  such  a  creature  as  Mrs.  Hobbes  in  existence,  so 
finished,  so  complete,  so  immune. 

Binky's  real  name  in  those  days  was  Captain  Gilbert 
Humphrey  Fitzgerald  Dawkins.  He  was  in  a  Cavalry 
Regiment,  and  I  fell  in  love  with  him  at  once,  if  not 
at  first  sight,  then  between  first  and  second  sight.  I 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  131 

don't  think  it  necessary  to  analyse  what  falling-in-love 
means  for  a  romantic  girl.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he 
entirely  upset  my  equilibrium,  that  he  blotted  out  the 
past  and  took  up  with  his  own  image  the  whole  of  the 
future.  I  forgot  Jim  Van  Orden.  I  abandoned  in  one 
instant  all  my  memories.  I  wanted  to  marry  this  man 
—  that  was  all.  Perhaps  I  wanted  him  more  fiercely  than 
most  girls  want  men.  I  don't  know.  There's  a  conven- 
tion abroad  that  women  don't  care  for  men  with  that 
physical  longing  that  eats  one's  vitality  away,  but  I  sus- 
pect that  this  convention  has  been  built  up  by  women 
themselves,  out  of  a  lie,  for  their  self -protection.  Any- 
how, although  I  was  very  proud  and  shy  with  Binky  and 
capricious  and  moody,  although  I  suppose  I  played  the 
game  of  the  coquette  to  some  extent,  luring  him  on 
and  keeping  him  off,  still  there  was  nothing  conven- 
tional in  my  feeling  for  Binky.  It  was  quite  an  uncon- 
trollable, wild  feeling,  a  choking,  dizzying,  humiliating 
feeling. 

I  remember  so  well  my  suffering  on  our  last  day  in 
India.  I  sat  all  the  afternoon  on  the  balcony  outside 
my  room,  in  the  Taj  Mahal  Hotel,  and  scowled  into 
the  dazzling  Bombay  Harbour.  Sampans  floated  softly 
on  the  pale,  glassy  water.  He  was,  so  I  supposed,  on 
the  Afghan  frontier,  fifteen  hundred  miles  north,  and 
his  personality  seemed  to  crush  me,  even  at  that  dis- 
tance. His  conjured  image  made  me  feel  sick  and  faint ; 
and  we  were  sailing  next  day  by  the  P.  and  O.  for 
Marseilles.  "  I  shall  never  see  him  again,"  I  kept 
repeating  to  myself  savagely.  Carriages  were  passing 
swiftly  beneath  me  along  the  dark  red  road,  open  car- 
riages drawn  by  magnificent  Arab  and  Australian  horses, 
and  occupied  by  Parsee  ladies  in  brilliant  silken  veils  that 


132  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

flowed  behind  them.  A  strange  scent  rose  from  the  date- 
palms  and  flowering  bushes  that  banked  the  fagade  by 
the  hotel.  Everything  was  soaked  in  a  queer,  pungent 
perfume,  that  all  but  obliterated  the  savour  of  the  sea.  A 
military  band  was  playing  in  the  yacht  club  near  by.  A 
large  vessel  was  coming  into  harbour  from  China,  or 
possibly  Siam,  or  New  Zealand,  and  the  romance  of 
the  Orient,  mingling  with  my  passionate  sentiment,  made 
my  heart  ache  with  an  insatiable  longing  and  curiosity 
and  despair.  I  kept  repeating :  "  I  will  never  see  him 
again,"  and  he  was  already  downstairs  talking  to  my 
father.  She  had  sent  him  down  to  Bombay  to  propose 
to  me. 

I  thought  of  France  and  England  as  dull,  grey  places 
of  monotonous  streets,  full  of  drab  faces  under  queer 
hats,  and  then  my  mind  flew  with  a  flurry  of  sympathy 
back  to  Iroquois,  where  Jerry  and  Dick  were,  and  Jim 
too;  but  the  thought  of  Jim  entered  my  head  only  long 
enough  to  be  dismissed  irritably.  I  did  not  want  to  go 
home,  I  wanted  to  go  nowhere  under  the  sun.  I  was 
sick  with  disappointment  and  bewilderment  and  jealousy. 
Yes,  I  must  have  been  already  jealous,  for  I  remember 
Mrs.  Hobbes  kept  appearing  erratically  and  persistently 
in  my  mind,  and  behind  her  image  lurked  the  thought, 
more  or  less  clearly  inarticulate,  that  it  was  impossible 
for  any  one  who  had  tasted  of  the  sharp  flavour  of  this 
woman  ever  to  care  for  a  young  girl  like  myself. 

You  see,  I  knew  a  good  deal  by  this  time,  in  a  con- 
fused way.  I  knew  about  as  much  as  "  Maisie  knew," 
in  that  story  by  Henry  James;  but  my  efforts  to  fit  the 
pieces  of  the  puzzle  together  were  not  as  sure  and 
instinctive  as  the  child's  were,  because  my  heart  and  my 
vanity  were  so  deeply  involved.  The  tangle  and  the  mys- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  133 

tery  were  only  just  clear  enough  to  engage  me  in  a 
disastrous  struggle,  a  struggle  between  my  pride  and 
my  infatuation.  This  much  I  knew,  that  I  couldn't  have 
him,  except  at  the  price  of  my  pride.  Ah,  yes,  they 
humiliated  me,  and  she  at  least  knew  it !  She  must  have 
known  it.  She  couldn't  have  thought  me  such  a  child 
as  not  to  be  aware  of  the  insult  she  put  upon  me.  I 
lay  it  all  at  her  door,  because  I  feel  sure  Binky  didn't 
realize.  There  is  nothing  cruel  about  Binky,  and 
nothing  subtle.  He  couldn't  have  understood  the  mean- 
ing of  the  affair.  I  know  he  didn't,  from  what  he  said 
afterwards. 

Then  there  were  other  things  that  I  knew.  I  knew 
that  Binky  was  not  good,  as  I  understood  goodness ;  but 
was  quite  wicked,  perhaps  even  incurably  bored  with 
goodness ;  and  this  bit  of  knowledge  added  to  his  fas- 
cination. No,  it  wasn't  his  having  played  the  part  of 
a  lover  to  the  wife  of  another  man  that  gave  me  the 
strength  to  refuse  him,  that  first  time.  No,  horrible 
as  that  seemed  to  me,  it  only  made  it  the  harder  to 
give  him  up.  It  was  something  else,  a  complicated  revul- 
sion of  feeling  in  which  my  sudden  discovery  that  he 
was  his  uncle's  heir  had  a  part. 

Poor  Binky!  it  has  taken  me  so  long  to  understand 
him,  and  I  did  him  such  injury  in  thinking  him  a 
wickeder  and  more  dashing  and  more  intelligent  man 
than  he  really  is.  After  all,  it  wasn't  his  fault  if  I 
made  him  out  to  be  a  colossal  figure,  and  dressed  him 
up  in  all  sorts  of  picturesque  raiment  which  didn't  fit 
him.  I  did  the  same  with  Joseph,  and  I've  done  the 
same  all  my  life  with  hundreds  of  people.  I  believe 
Jim  is  the  only  man  I  ever  saw  clearly,  and  I  let  him 
go.  I  am  like  the  dog  in  the  fable,  who  let  the  bread 


134  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

drop  out  of  his  mouth.  I  am  always  looking  beyond 
the  actual.  Some  one  has  defined  romanticism  as  "  look- 
ing beyond  the  horizon,"  and  that  is  what  I  have  always 
been  doing.  I  am  for  ever  believing  that  there  is 
more  in  people  than  they  really  amount  to,  finding  more 
meaning  in  things  than  really  exists  there,  expecting 
more  excitement  from  an  experience  than  the  experience 
can  possibly  supply;  and  so  I  call  this  the  story  of 
a  romantic  woman,  the  story  of  self-inflicted  disap- 
pointment. 

Well,  I  was  excessively  romantic  about  Binky,  and 
it  was  partly  due  to  the  setting  in  which  I  found  him. 

It  was  wild  and  bare  on  the  Afghan  frontier,  some- 
thing like  Job's  wilderness,  only  no  one  wrestled  with 
his  soul  there.  The  hills  to  the  north  that  looked  as 
if  they  were  cut  out  of  cardboard,  scrawled  a  jagged 
line  across  the  sky,  and  beyond  this  line  was  Afghanis- 
tan. I  beheld  my  hero  against  a  background  of  desert 
and  frowning  sandhills,  amongst  which  appeared  now 
and  then  the  muzzle  of  a  rifle  and  the  savage,  bearded 
face  of  a  picturesque  ruffian.  He  stood  out  well  against 
s\ich  a  background.  In  the  direct  line  of  a  menacing 
gun-barrel,  I  could  see  him  light  a  cigarette  and  play 
with  his  pony's  nose.  He  seemed  to  me  extremely  reck- 
less and  dashing;  and  he  was  almost  too  good-looking, 
almost  too  surely  the  hero  of  dreams.  It  was  true  that 
he  did  his  best  to  obliterate  his  looks ;  his  hair  was  cropped 
short,  he  walked  with  a  contemptuous  slipshod  fling  of 
his  superb  body,  and  wore  very  old  and  shapeless  clothes, 
but  it  did  no  good.  He  was  elaborately  handsome,  and 
his  carelessness  made  him  the  more  unquestionably 
attractive. 

His  hair  was  just  faintly  tinged  with  grey  in  those 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  135 

days,  and  he  had  a  vivid,  bright  look  on  his  face,  a 
look  of  clear  good-humour  with  a  dash  of  mockery, 
that  was  very  charming.  I  first  saw  him  on  the  polo- 
ground.  He  came  riding  across  the  field  with  his  saddle- 
girth  burst  in  two,  balancing  precariously  and  grinning. 
His  scarlet  shirt  was  streaked  black  with  perspiration, 
his  face  under  his  topi  was  of  the  unpleasant  hot  shade, 
relieved  by  daubs  of  dirt.  He  was  certainly  not  beau- 
tiful then,  but  the  long  line  of  his  wet,  red  shirt  and 
worn  breeches  pleased  me  unaccountably,  and  the  way 
he  sat  his  ungirthed  pony,  careless,  secure,  quizzical, 
seemed  to  me  unspeakably  attractive.  I  listened  for  his 
voice.  It  had  a  dry,  toneless  quality ;  and  his  words,  half 
of  them  never  came  beyond  his  moustache.  He  spoke  as 
though  it  didn't  matter  whether  any  one  heard  him  or 
not,  as  though  speech  was  a  bore  and  there  was  nothing  on 
earth  worth  saying  anyhow. 

None  of  them  could  be  said  to  talk  much;  there  was 
never  any  conversation  that  I  remember.  Even  the 
women  seemed  to  think  it  unnecessary  to  be  entertaining. 
I  had  always  believed  that  one  thing  woman  had  to  do 
was  to  talk;  brilliantly,  interestingly  if  possible,  but 
anyhow  to  talk.  Girls  in  Iroquois  thought  a  great  deal 
of  a  good  talker.  Phyllis  was  the  only  girl  I  knew  at 
home  who  got  along  without  talking,  but  all  these  women 
were  the  same.  They  threw  out  remarks  now  and  then, 
most  of  the  time  unintelligible  to  me,  and  usually 
received  with  laughter,  dry,  short,  and  equally  unintelli- 
gible. Mrs.  Hobbes  sometimes  said  nothing  at  all  for 
hours,  and  Mrs.  Hobbes  was  certainly  fascinating.  I 
saw  that  plainly  enough  at  once,  though  she  did  look 
something  like  a  shark  made  of  ivory.  All  she  had  to 
do  was  to  look  through  those  narrow  golden  eyes  of 


136  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

hers  and  smile  a  little,  to  make  you  feel  her  power. 
When  she  smiled  it  was  as  though  a  light  from  an  outside 
source  had  touched  her  for  a  moment,  had  produced  by 
its  fleeting  radiance  the  illusion  of  movement  upon  her 
features,  that  were  in  themselves  immovable.  She  was 
like  marble,  all  cold,  with  silvery  tints  in  her  skin  and 
copper  in  her  stiffly  coiffed  hair.  Only  in  her  thin, 
curved  lips  was  there  any  warmth,  and  her  voice  had 
a  ringing  quality,  sometimes  musical,  sometimes  harsh 
as  the  clang  of  metal.  One  could  not  admit  that  she 
was  beautiful  with  that  high-arched  nose.  It  was  too 
large.  But  she  was  more  than  beautiful;  she  was  inex- 
plicably menacing  and  alluring.  One  could  imagine  that 
she  knew  everything,  was  a  golden  receptacle  for  secrets ; 
yet  she  talked  like  a  very  ordinary  person,  and  had  no 
affectations,  unless  it  was  her  immobility.  She  dressed 
severely,  and  in  my  opinion  badly.  They  all  dressed 
badly,  the  women,  even  Lady  O'Donald,  my  hostess  at 
Government  House;  but  their  clothes  didn't  seem  to 
matter  any  more  than  their  lack  of  conversation.  They 
had  a  wonderfully  secure  touch  with  men.  The  men 
and  women  treated  each  other  like  —  like,  not  quite  like 
brothers  and  sisters,  but  certainly  not  as  American 
women  and  American  men.  I  couldn't  put  to  it  myself. 
There  was  here  a  certain  camaraderie  that  took  every- 
thing for  granted,  seemed  to  have  got  beyond  the  business 
or  the  game  of  flirtation.  At  first  I  was  mystified ;  then, 
puzzling  it  out,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  women 
were  all  bored  by  the  continual  presence  of  the  same  men  ; 
then  suddenly  I  discovered  that  underneath  the  casual, 
desultory  converse,  love-affairs  were  going  on.  That 
took  my  breath  away,  then  made  me  feel  acutely  mis- 
erable, envious,  and  ashamed  of  being  envious. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  137 

The  fact  that  married  women  had  love-affairs  wasn't 
in  the  bare  sense  a  piece  of  news,  but  as  a  reality  with 
which  one  came  casually  in  contact,  it  was  a  revela- 
tion. 

My  initiation  was  accidental,  and  it  so  happened  that 
the  edge  of  the  shock  was  taken  off  for  me  by  Mrs. 
Hobbes,  in  a  peculiarly  cold,  enlightening  way.  I  had 
surprised  Mrs.  Tripp  on  the  back  verandah  of  her 
bungalow  with  her  hand  on  a  subaltern's  curly  head, 
in  an  attitude  that  suggested  a  light  kiss  just  past,  or 
about  to  be  given.  I  had  fled  out  into  the  garden,  and 
finding  Mrs.  Hobbes  there  alone,  had  blurted  out  some- 
thing about  being  mortified,  some  ridiculous  apologetic 
nonsense,  quite  uncalled  for,  which  she  easily  enough 
understood. 

"  Molly  won't  mind,"  she  said  shortly,  with  a  con- 
temptuous curve  of  her  fine  lips. 

"  Won't  she  ?  "  I  gasped. 

"  Lord,  no !  Why  should  she  ?  "  Her  great  pale  eyes 
pitied  me.  I  think  she  made  up  her  eyelashes,  perhaps 
not.  Anyhow  she  used  her  eyes  with  disconcerting  skill. 

I  half  closed  mine,  and  saw  again  the  flushed  young 
man  scrambling  to  his  feet  from  his  half-kneeling  posture 
by  Molly's  chair.  I  saw  more :  an  abyss  opening  before 
me. 

Molly  Tripp  was  the  wife  of  the  General  in  command 
of  the  station.  She  was  obviously  a  good  sort.  I  found 
her  in  the  beginning  a  perfect  dear,  and  to  this  day  I 
like  her.  I  have  always  liked  her.  She  is  so  sporting, 
so  generous  and  kind  and  sweet-natured.  How  on  earth 
she  has  managed  to  keep  sweet-natured  I  can't  imagine, 
but  she  has,  and  her  heart  is  as  fresh  and  untouched  as 
her  face  is  withered.  She  was  withered  and  emaciated 


138  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

even  then,  with  a  wrinkled,  vivacious  face,  and  scrawny 
neck;  and  she  will  go  on  being  withered  and  light- 
hearted  to  the  end  of  her  life,  and  her  scraggy,  hag- 
gard charm  will  avail  always  with  every  one  except 
Henry,  her  husband,  who  is  a  beast,  and  insults  her  in 
public. 

She  was  forty  then,  when  I  was  nineteen,  and  next 
to  Lady  O'Donald  the  senior  lady  in  the  station,  and 
there  was  no  dignity  and  no  wickedness  in  her.  Her 
flirtations  were  utterly  frivolous  and  absurd.  Claire 
Hobbes  knew  that.  Any  one  and  every  one  ought  to  have 
known  that  Molly's  actions  were  always  as  indiscreet 
and  innocent  as  the  light  of  day. 

And  just  because  I  felt  this  about  her,  the  kiss  which 
seemed  hovering  in  the  air  between  those  two  was  the 
more  astonishing.  Its  thoughtless,  indiscreet  brightness 
meant  so  much  more  than  anything  furtive  or  dark. 

Mrs.  Hobbes  continued  to  smile  with  uplifted  eye- 
brows, and  I  saw  that  she  must  be  smiling  at  the  horror 
and  confusion  in  my  own  face.  I  stammered  again, 
making  myself  the  more  amusing  to  her. 

"  I'm  sorry  —  I  was  asked  for  tennis,"  I  burst  in. 
"  Lady  O'Donald  dropped  us  here.  Captain  Dawkins  was 
with  me.  He " 

"  Binky !  Oh,  Binky  doesn't  matter.  Molly's  little 
affairs "  she  laughed.  "  You  quaint  dear ;  she  con- 
fides in  Binky." 

I  stared,  appalled  by  a  sudden  question. 

If  Molly  Tripp  went  in  for  harmless,  light-hearted 
affairs,  what  did  Claire  Hobbes  go  in  for  ? 

I  gazed  at  the  other's  chiselled  face  under  the  uncom- 
promising line  of  her  riding-hat.  I  took  in  the  slightly 
dilated  nostrils,  the  marvellous  texture  of  the  skin,  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  139 

firm,  clear  line  of  the  lips  with  their  slight,  hard  smile; 
and  I  believed  it  was  then  —  on  Molly's  tennis-lawn, 
with  Molly  herself  emerging  from  the  verandah,  her 
white  hat  tilted  rakishly  over  her  aged  unconcerned  little 
face  —  just  then,  while  Mrs.  Hobbes  lightly  tapped 
her  riding-boot  with  her  crop  and  stared  back  at  me 
with  that  cruel,  appraising  glance,  that  I  began  to  dis- 
like her. 

I  know  now  what  that  glance  meant.  She  was  even 
then  sizing  me  up  for  Binky,  and  her  glance  was  one 
of  calculating  approval.  I  should  do.  I  should  do  so 
well  that  to  give  him  to  me  would  cost  her  horrid  pain. 
Yes,  way  down  inside  of  her  frozen  self,  she  was  suffer- 
ing too  and  hating  me,  because  she  was  going  to  give  him 
to  me,  and  because  she  was  afraid  he  would  like  it 


CHAPTER  Two 

I  MARK  the  beginning  of  that  process  of  going  to 
pieces  that  I  keep  alluding  to,   as  dating  from  a 
certain  night  when  Binky  gave  me  a  dinner-party 
in   his   bungalow.     It   was   a   very   select   little   dinner- 
party ;  my  father  was  not  there,  nor  anybody's  husband ; 
only  choice  spirits  like  Claire  Hobbes  and  Molly  Tripp 
and  Ruffles ;  and  it  was  then,  out  of  sheer  pique  and 
chagrin,  that  I  gave  way.     I  longed  to  be  fast,  so  that  I 
might  attract  him. 

I  had  been  feeling  vaguely  unhappy  ever  since  my 
contretemps  with  Mrs.  Hobbes  in  Molly's  garden.  My 
ignorance  and  awkwardness  hampered  and  irked  me. 
My  enthusiasm  seemed  as  absurd  as  ill-fitting  clothes,  and 
my  shy  response  to  Binky 's  attentions  seemed  clumsy, 
futile  methods  of  attraction  compared  to  the  harsh  glitter 
and  finished,  distrait  rudeness  of  these  Englishwomen ; 
but  that  night  all  my  misery  came  to  a  head.  And  when 
I  got  home  to  my  plastered  room  in  Government  House, 
I  cried  tears  of  mortification. 

Poor,  wretched,  absurd  creature!  As  if  my  being 
worldly-wise  would  have  made  me  one  bit  more  attractive 
to  Binky !  His  own  simplicity  ought  to  have  been  obvious 
enough  when  he  came  to  me,  to  apologize  for  them.  I 
remember  now  his  boyish  remorse,  his  contrite  confusion. 
Why  didn't  I  then  and  there  understand  that  underneath 
his  gallant  exterior  he  was  rather  a  stupid,  nice  boy ! 
I  suppose  it  was  her  personality  that  coloured  him  in 

J40 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  141 

my  eyes.  It  was  impossible  for  me  to  conceive  of  an 
Adam  dwelling,  as  it  were,  in  the  bosom  of  that  won- 
derful Eve  without  contamination.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  the  friend  and  knight-errant  of  Mrs.  Hobbes  must 
be  a  bold,  bad  man.  And  then,  besides  this,  I  wanted 
to  believe  him  to  be  a  bold,  bad  man. 

You  see,  I  wanted  to  be  one  of  them  because  he 
was  one  of  them.  Though  everybody  made  a  fuss  over 
me,  just  because  everybody  made  such  a  fuss  over  me 
I  felt  out  of  it.  Up  to  the  night  of  the  dinner,  they 
all  put  on  airs  for  my  benefit.  The  men  laid  them- 
selves out  to  please  me.  They  never  treated  me  to 
the  casual  and  terse  good-humoured  ragging  that  they 
served  up  to  their  own  women.  When  I  entered  a 
group,  it  bestirred  itself  and  made  conversation.  How 
I  longed  for  the  compliment  of  their  flippancy,  and  their 
silence ! 

My  father  could  match  any  of  them  in  reticence. 
In  the  midst  of  my  own  babble,  I  could  always  feel 
the  support  of  his  silence.  They  were  afraid  of  him ; 
I  saw  that  and  was  glad.  I  didn't  want  him  to  make 
advances  to  them,  didn't  care  how  aloof  he  was;  but 
for  myself,  I  wanted  to  be  one  of  them,  I  wanted  to 
be  what  they  were,  only  more  so,  because  of  Binky. 

He  alone,  of  the  whole  lot,  had  treated  me  casually, 
because  it  was,  I  suppose,  impossible  for  him  to  treat 
any  one  otherwise,  even  if  his  life  depended  on  it.  And 
from  him  alone  I  wanted  the  differentiating  touch  of 
reverence.  In  his  case,  I  got  the  indifferent  air,  and 
it  piqued  and  angered  me.  He  was  lackadaisical  and 
cynically  frivolous  with  every  one.  He  was  always  teas- 
ing and  ragging,  muttering  little  jokes  to  one  and  another, 
and  chuckling  to  himse*lf.  Never  did  he  allow  himself 


142  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to  be  drawn  into  a  serious  discussion,  never  did  he 
evidence  any  emotion  of  any  kind  except  mild  amusement 
and  an  occasional  flare  of  temper.  And  I  thought, 
because  I  wanted  to  think  so,  that  this  airy  persiflage 
covered  great  depths  of  thought  and  feeling.  What 
fired  my  imagination  was  the  prospect  of  this  cynical 
worldling  becoming  for  me  a  simple,  earnest  lover.  If 
a  man  so  reckless  and  gay  could  for  one  moment,  under 
the  influence  of  a  rare  feeling,  be  tender  and  serious, 
how  inexpressibly  sweet  that  would  be.  I  beheld  in  my 
mind's  eye  that  swift,  scathing  intellect  melted,  that 
mocking  face  transformed  with  sympathy.  I  heard  that 
well-bred,  muttering  voice  vibrating  with  restrained 
passion,  and  my  heart  flamed  at  the  thought. 

How  funny  it  seems  now!  Poor  Bihky  —  or  rather, 
poor  me!  Binky  is  happy  enough.  He  never  went  to 
pieces.  As  he  is,  so  he  has  been  and  ever  shall  be; 
and  he  isn't  even  aware  of  what  a  legend  I  wove  around 
him. 

He  lived  by  himself  in  a  small  bungalow  next  to 
the  Officers'  Mess.  It  was  a  very  small  bungalow, 
and  my  impression  of  its  interior  is  a  confusion  of  dogs 
and  drinks,  and  chintz  curtains  sent  out  by  his  mother. 
There  were  puppies  and  bottles  everywhere,  and  up- 
holstered chairs  covered  with  the  maternal  flowered 
chintz.  One  was  conscious  too,  somehow  or  other,  of 
the  close  proximity  of  many  horses.  If  the  bungalow 
was  small,  the  stables  were  large.  All  the  servants' 
houses  had  been  turned  into  stables,  and  in  them  dwelt  the 
eight  polo  ponies  and  three  hunters  which  were  the 
absorbing  interest  of  his  life,  and  the  source  of  his 
debts. 

Dinner  was  served  from  the  mess  kitchen  next  door, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  143 

and  it  was  rather  a  bad  dinner,  but  there  was  so  much 
drink  and  so  much  talk  that  no  one  seemed  to  mind. 
Ruffles  began  at  once,  as  we  sat  down.  He  accused 
Molly  of  having  had  twins  sub  rosa,  and  how  did  she 
do  it,  he  demanded,  without  ever  letting  on?  He  had 
heard  one  squealing  that  very  afternoon  when  he  called. 
Oh  —  he  could  tell  a  baby  from  a  pomeranian.  Yes, 
he  could  really.  This  sound  hadn't  the  slightest  resem- 
blance to  a  puppy's  yelp.  Now,  was  it  quite  good  form 
to  have  twins  at  all,  much  less  to  have  them  like  that 
without  telling?  He  had  grave  suspicions  from  Henry's 
behaviour  that  afternoon,  that  he  (Henry)  was  a  mysti- 
fied parent.  Come,  had  she  told  Henry,  or  had  she  kept 
it  dark? 

How  I  hated  Ruffles!  I  could  have  killed  him,  and 
he  absolutely  ignored  me,  just  rattled  on,  teasing  Granny, 
as  he  called  Mrs.  Tripp,  until  she  gasped  and  shrieked, 
and  sending  Mrs.  Hobbes  off  into  uncontrollable  fits 
of  laughter.  I  had  never  seen  Claire  Hobbes  laugh 
before,  but  under  Ruffles's  cocked  eye  she  let  herself 
go,  the  tears  streamed  down  her  face,  and  when  Binky 
tried  to  stem  the  tide,  she  merely  gasped,  "  Oh,  Lord  — 
Binky,  do  laugh.  For  God's  sake  laugh ! "  and  went 
off  again. 

No  one  paid  any  attention  to  me.  I  stared  at  my 
plate,  wondering  if  sometime  and  somehow  this  sort 
of  thing  might  seem  funny  to  me,  and  feeling  a  per- 
fect fool.  If  every  one  else  is  laughing,  the  one  who 
doesn't  see  the  joke  must  feel  an  idiot.  I  wanted  to 
do  something  to  Ruffles.  I  loathed  his  complacency,  his 
perfect  impudence.  He  semed  to  me  vulgar  and  con- 


144  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

ceited,  and  I  marvelled  that  Molly  Tripp  could  allow 
him  to  take  such  liberties. 

Ruffles  and  I  are  friends  now. 

He  offended  my  vanity  that  night  as  it  had  never  been 
offended  before.  When  I  tried  to  say  something,  he 
simply  didn't  listen,  turned  his  shoulder,  and  began 
ragging  Molly  over  again.  His  deviltry  made  me  sick, 
but  all  the  time  he  was  ragging  Molly,  I  knew  that  he 
liked  her  enormously,  and  I  suppose  underneath  it  all, 
I  wanted  that  compliment  too,  the  compliment  of  being 
admired  by  a  clever  little  bounder  whom  I  hadn't  the 
strength  of  character  to  despise. 

I  don't  mean  to  say  that  Ruffles  actually  is  a  bounder ; 
he  is  really  what  men  call  "  one  of  the  best " ;  but  I 
thought  him  one  then,  and  he  still  looks  a  bit  of  an 
outsider.  He  is  rather  slight  and  small  and  hard,  and  he 
gives  the  impression  of  great  elasticity,  as  though  his 
limbs  and  his  muscles  were  of  india-rubber.  He  is 
slightly  bow-legged,  which,  after  all,  is  a  small  price 
to  pay  for  being  one  of  the  finest  polo-players  in  the 
world.  He  has  an  amusing  face.  One  of  his  eye-brows 
is  higher  than  the  other,  which  gives  him  somehow  the 
air  of  a  sportive  puppy,  and  there  are  two  deep  lines  on 
either  side  of  his  mouth,  like  elongated  dimples.  He 
hasn't  much  hair,  but  what  he  has  is  grey,  stiff,  grizzled 
hair,  like  nigger's  wool,  and  he  has  a  wild  taste  in  neck- 
ties and  socks.  Nothing  will  ever  temper  his  love  for 
brilliant  neckties  and  socks. 

He  tells  me  now  that  he  wanted  me  himself,  but 
I  don't  believe  him.  I  never  believe  anything  he  says, 
but  what  he  does  say  is  very  entertaining  all  the  same. 
He  is  a  quaint  mixture,  a  Roman  Catholic  and  an  inter- 
national polo-player,  and  an  authority  on  birds. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  145 

Sometimes  we  refer  to  those  days  on  the  frontier. 
He  says  he  was  watching  me  all  the  time,  and  was  awfully 
amused  to  see  how  I  was  taking  the  Binky-Hobbes  affair. 
He  didn't  think  I'd  swallow  it,  had  never  been  so  surprised 
in  his  life  as  when  he  heard  we  were  engaged.  He 
watched  the  process  of  my  going  to  pieces,  what  he  calls 
my  growing  up,  with  delight,  because  he  thought  all  the 
time  that  it  was  bringing  me  within  his  reach.  Now,  he 
has  got  over  that  idea  too. 

You  see  what  a  long  way  I  have  travelled  since  that 
dinner.  It  seems  wonderful  to  me  that  I  could  have 
suffered  as  acutely  as  I  did  then.  There  was  a  lot  more 
of  the  same  sort  of  thing  after  dinner.  Molly,  I  remem- 
ber, had  on  a  gorgeous  petticoat,  and  then  there  was  the 
whole  subject  of  the  bed.  Ruffles,  it  seemed,  had  bought 
her  bed,  and  it  squeaked.  He  had  paid  seventy-five 
rupees  for  it,  and  it  squeaked  so  that  he  couldn't  sleep. 
He  was  sure  Henry's  ghost  must  haunt  the  thing.  It 
was  fatal  for  a  bachelor  to  try  and  sleep  in  a  great  con- 
nubial bed  like  that.  Wouldn't  she  take  it  back.  Claire 
Hobbes  here  interposed  with  some  remark  about  Molly 
having  dispensed  with  the  need  for  it,  whereat  they 
all  roared.  I  didn't  understand,  but  I  felt  myself  blush- 
ing, and  as  they  all  looked  for  an  instant  rather  guiltily 
in  my  direction,  I  grew  more  and  more  crimson.  It 
was  horrid. 

Binky,  as  I  said  before,  did  his  best  to  head  them 
off  and  draw  them  in  and  hold  them  up,  but  he  didn't 
succeed  in  doing  much  more  than  let  me  know  he  was 
ashamed  of  them,  by  coming  to  my  rescue  with  awkward 
platitudes,  darting  funny  glances  of  consternation  about 
him.  I  felt  that  he  must,  all  the  same,  despise  me  for 
not  paying  them  back  in  their  own  coin,  for  not  showing 


146  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

myself  mistress  of  the  hilarious  situation,  and  his  apology 
next  morning  was  a  comfort. 

It  was  given  in  the  dark  of  a  very  wintry  five  o'clock, 
while  we  drove  to  the  meet.  He  had  established  the 
right  to  call  for  me  at  Government  House  and  drive 
me  out,  every  hunting  morning,  but  on  this  morning, 
such  was  my  sense  of  defeat  that  I  scarcely  expected 
him  to  turn  up.  I  remember  standing  in  the  verandah, 
waiting  and  shivering  inside  my  fur  coat,  and  thinking 
that  if  he  didn't  come  I  could  always  pretend  I  had  not 
intended  to  hunt  that  morning.  I  had  dressed  myself 
without  help.  No  one  would  know.  You  can  imagine, 
then,  when  I  heard  the  wheels  of  his  spindly  trap  and 
the  irregular  tap  of  his  pony's  skittish  hoofs,  how  relieved 
I  was.  And  when  I  found  him  more  solicitous,  devoted, 
and  flattering  than  ever  before,  I  loved  him  for  what  I 
termed  to  myself  his  generosity.  It  actually  seemed  to 
me  noble  of  him  not  to  mind  my  stupidity  of  the  night 
before,  and  with  a  full  revulsion  of  feeling  I  gave  my- 
self up  to  happiness.  Yes,  certainly  that  icy-cold  drive 
before  dawn  was  one  of  the  happiest  hours  of  my  life. 
I  remember  how  the  pale  day,  stealing  over  the  parched 
country  like  a  grey  spirit,  thrilled  me  with  a  sense  of 
mystery.  It  was  very  cold,  and  he  tucked  the  sheep- 
skin rug  round  my  feet  solicitously,  and  informed  me 
he  had  beer  and  sandwiches  under  the  seat  for  me  to 
drink  and  eat  on  the  way  back.  And  then  he  went  on 
to  say  that  he  felt  like  thrashing  Ruffles,  and  would 
I  forgive  him  for  introducing  such  a  bounder,  such  an 
out-and-out  cad,  but,  really,  he  hadn't  known  the  man 
was  such  a  swine.  And  as  he  talked  on  I  grew  more 
and  more  blissful.  We  drove  through  an  uncanny  world 
of  half-light.  The  shadowy  forms  of  bullocks,  and 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  147 

silent,  hooded  villagers,  loomed  spectrally  through  the 
dust  and  mist.  And  in  that  strange  country,  passing 
through  straggling  throngs  of  weird,  alien  folk,  we  two 
seemed  very  intimate  and  alone,  and  after  he  had 
exhausted  his  apologies  and  I  had  denied  being  anything 
but  vastly  entertained  at  dinner,  we  grew  absurd  and 
light-hearted.  And  I  loved  him  too  for  being  gay  at 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  His  profile,  revealed  to  me 
under  the  hood  of  the  trap,  in  the  light  of  the  dawn, 
seemed  to  me  the  handsomest  I  had  ever  seen,  and  the 
slight  stoop  in  his  pink-coated  shoulders  thrilled  me  un- 
speakably. 

I  rode  his  best  hunter,  and  was  in  at  the  finish  of 
the  wretched  jackal ;  and  afterwards,  standing  in  the 
road,  dusty  and  sweaty,  and  divinely  happy,  I  drank  half 
his  bottle  of  beer,  and  singled  Ruffles  out  with  what  I 
considered  a  peculiarly  clever  little  nod. 

I  remember  his  saying,  as  I  climbed  again  into  his 
trap: 

"  They're  all  lookin'  and  wonderin',  because  I  don't 
do  this  sort  of  thing  much,  you  know,"  meaning  by  this 
sort  of  thing,  myself. 

I  was  elated  by  his  attentions,  which  made  me  con- 
spicuous, and  for  two  days  after  this,  while  he  dogged 
my  footsteps,  quite  obviously  trying  to  screw  up  courage 
to  propose,  I  toyed  with  him  delightedly,  sure  of  my 
conquest,  rapturously,  divinely  sure,  and  then  it  was  that 
I  came  upon  the  bewildering  revelation. 

Lady  O'Donald  was  giving  a  garden  party  in  honour 
of  some  native  prince,  and  I  was  late  in  arriving  on  the 
scene.  I  was  hurrying  across  the  lawn  to  join  her  under 
the  distant  "  shamina,"  where  she  was  receiving  turbaned 
gentlemen,  when  I  ran  into  Molly  and  Mrs.  Hobbes.  I 


148  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

came  swiftly  up  behind  their  hibiscus  bush,  and  caught 
the  sound  of  my  own  name  and  stopped. 

"  You  seem  to  have  fallen  a  victim,  too,"  Mrs.  Hobbes 
was  saying. 

"  She's  perfectly  adorable."  Molly  Tripp,  I  repeat, 
was  a  dear. 

"How  old  is  she?" 

"  Nineteen,  I  believe." 

"  Lord !  "  Mrs.  Hobbes's  voice  took  on  a  metallic  ring. 
"  If  I  were  nineteen,  with  that  face  and  five  millions,  what 
wouldn't  I  do?" 

"  You  do  quite  enough  as  it  is,  my  dear." 

"  Nineteen !  All  the  same,  I  suspect  that  air  of  inno- 
cence. Those  eyes  have  bowled  over  too  many  men  not 
to  know  what  they're  doing." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you.  She's  absurdly  unconscious. 
You're  a  little  bored,  aren't  you,  about  Binky?  Why 
make  him  dance  such  frantic  attendance  on  her  ?  " 

The  emerald-green  lawn  and  the  scarlet-coated  servants 
and  the  dotted  forms  of  white-flannelled  tennis-players 
blurred  suddenly. 

"  He  likes  it,"  enunciated  the  icy  voice ;  "  and  be- 
sides   "  Pause,  and  then  in  a  smaller,  tired  tone : 

"  Binky  must  marry  some  day.  It  might  as  well  be  now. 
Here's  his  chance." 

And  will  you  believe  it,  as  I  stole  away  back  to  the 
house,  I  could  for  the  moment  hear  nothing,  think  of 
nothing,  but  the  pain,  the  undeniable,  furiously  weary 
pain  in  that  hateful  voice,  and  it  was  because  of  that 
pain  that  I  was  turned  completely  adrift.  It  was  all  too 
much  for  me. 

I  wandered  weakly  back  to  the  house  and  threw  myself 
on  my  bed  and  stared  at  the  ceiling,  which  was  miles 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  i49 

high  and  covered  with  cobwebs.  The  sound  of  the 
police-band  playing  "  Under  the  Shadows,"  or  some  such 
tune,  came  through  the  open  windows,  and  I  found  my- 
self, after  a  time,  thinking  of  Major  Hobbes,  little  red- 
faced  jocular  Major  Hobbes.  My  mind  dwelt  on  him. 

You  must  remember  that  it  was  not  so  very  long 
since  Phyllis  and  Louise  and  I  had  all  vowed  together 
in  the  middle  of  Louise's  little  baby-white  bed,  never 
to  marry  a  man  who  had  ever  cared  for  any  other 
woman  the  slightest  bit.  It  was  not  that  we  demanded 
men  who  were  virgin  in  body,  we  didn't  know  anything 
about  being  anything  else,  we  demanded  them  virgin  in 
mind  and  heart;  and  we  thought  our  chances  of  getting 
what  we  wanted  were  exceeedingly  good,  about  a  hundred 
to  one  against. 

Picture  yourself  the  pride  and  ignorance  of  my  youth, 
and  remember  the  loyalty  of  my  father  and  mother  one 
to  another,  and  you  will  have  some  inkling  of  my  state 
of  mind.  I  had  no  data  to  go  on.  Nothing  but  a  reli- 
gious upbringing,  a  reverence  for  marriage,  vague,  horrid 
fears,  and  a  longing  for  this  man.  Mrs.  Hobbes  and 
Binky  swam  before  me,  indistinctly  coupled,  terribly 
attractive  and  well-matched.  Their  special  relationship 
I  was  incapable  of  labelling,  but  they  were  coupled 
together  in  my  mind  as  disembodied  spirits,  romantically 
and  beautifully. 

That  they  were  wicked  was  an  inevitable  conclusion, 
deduced  from  the  fact  that  she  was  another  man's  wife, 
but  their  wickedness  partook  of  no  physical  suggestion 
to  disgust  me.  Its  abstractness  made  it  positively  at- 
tractive and  enviable.  I  was  not  disillusioned,  far 
from  it,  nor  was  I  seriously  shocked.  I  was  quite 
definitely  angry  and  offended  because  another  woman 


150  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

who  knew  all  the  meaning  of  love  and  of  life,  had  a 
prior  claim  to  him,  and  was  disposing  of  him  to  me.  I 
was  consumed  with  jealousy,  enraged  by  the  insult  they 
two  together,  as  it  seemed,  had  offered  me,  and  terrified 
by  the  knowledge  that  I  still  wanted  him. 

Yes  —  more  than  ever  I  wanted  him,  and  with  him 
the  high  and  passionate  experience  which  his  love  rep- 
resented. 


THE -torment  of  that  B inky-Mrs.  Hobbes  situ- 
ation partakes  always  in  my  memory  of  the 
smell  of  Bombay,  a  steamy,  hot  smell  of  spices, 
perfumes,  dust,  and  the  droppings  of  animals  all  stewing 
together  in  the  sun.  I  have  the  same  pungent,  tickling 
sense  in  my  nose  now,  as  I  think  of  it,  and  for  years 
an  odour  even  faintly  similar  has  always  called  up  the 
painful  memory.  My  suffering  was  so  very  acute  there 
on  the  balcony  of  the  Taj  Mahal  Hotel,  that  I  didn't 
think  of  moving  into  the  cool  shadow  of  the  tiled  room, 
but  sat  outside  in  the  reflected  glare,  holding  my  damp 
head  in  my  hands  and  thinking  deliriously.  I  wanted 
him  so  —  but  not  like  that.  It  was  terrible  to  feel  that 
I  should  never,  under  any  circumstances,  be  sure  that 
he,  of  his  own  initiative,  wanted  me. 

I  was  still  floundering  helplessly  in  the  mess  of  it, 
when  the  door  opened  across  the  room  behind  me,  and 
my  father  entered.  I  turned  as  he  came  to  me.  He 
looked  tired  and  hot.  His  loose  silk  clothes  stuck  to 
him  in  places,  and  he  mopped  his  forehead  with  a  large 
bandanna  handkerchief.  His  forehead,  I  noticed,  was 
flushed  red  under  his  whitening  hair. 

"  Captain  Dawkins  is  here."  I  turned  from  him  again 
quickly  and  stared  dizzily  through  narrowed  eyelids  out 
over  the  languid,  unreal  sea,  whose  colour  and  savour 
were  obliterated  by  the  downpour  of  the  sun. 


1 52  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

He  came  out  on  the  balcony  and  stood  beside 
me,  leaning  forward,  his  hands  on  the  railing.  The 
facade  of  the  hotel  cut  off  the  sun  behind  us,  lending 
us  a  safe  strip  of  shadow,  the  edge  of  which  lay  along 
the  middle  of  the  red  road  beneath.  I  waited,  while  he 
straightened  up  again,  and  with  a  characteristic  gesture 
began  pulling  his  moustache  gently  first  on  one  side,  then 
on  the  other.  I  could  feel,  for  all  his  quiet  and  delibera- 
tion, that  he  was  profoundly  disturbed. 

"  He  has  asked  leave  to  propose  to  you.  You  must 
decide  for  yourself.  Your  mother  might  have  advised 
you.  I  don't  know.  You  must  decide.  I  want  you  to  be 
happy." 

I  rose  unsteadily  and  put  my  cheek  against  his.  I 
was  nearly  as  tall  as  he.  I  clung  to  his  arm,  my  hands 
clasped  round  it,  and  we  contemplated  the  situation 
together  silently. 

"  I  had  not  thought  of  your  marrying  an  English- 
man," he  ventured  again,  after  a  moment.  I  drew  away 
and  looked  in  his  face,  and  the  pain  in  his  eyes,  the 
weary  languor  in  his  face,  that  he  had  so  completely 
obliterated  from  his  voice,  recalled  to  me  the  days  after 
my  mother's  death,  when  I  had  vowed  never  to  leave 
him.  I  knew  now  that  I  should  leave  him  some  time, 
if  not  for  this  man  then  for  another,  and  it  came  as 
a  shock  to  me,  that  there  was  a  force  in  the  world 
stronger  than  my  love  for  him.  One  of  the  central 
pivots  in  the  machinery  of  existence  seemed  suddenly 
to  have  gone  wrong.  I  was  troubled  and  bewildered 
by  a  multitude  of  visions,  of  temptations,  of  hopes. 

I  kissed  him  nervously,  and  buried  my  face  in  his  coat. 
I  was  a  little  ashamed. 

"  You're   very   young.     I   don't   quite   see   you   as   a 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  153 

duchess,  somehow."  For  a  moment,  in  the  turmoil  of 
my  mind,  I  didn't  take  in  the  meaning  of  this  last 
remark.  Then  it  penetrated,  making  everything  all  at 
once  more  lucid,  separating  things  queerly,  and  my  reply, 
though  not  spoken  aloud,  was  concise  enough.  "  No  — 
I  don't  want  to  be  a  duchess.  That  is  what  they  would 
all  expect  me  to  do  — '  to  marry  a  duke.'  " 

I  don't  mean  to  suggest  that  my  dislike  of  being  a 
duchess  was  sufficient  to  make  me  throw  over  Binky. 
Certainly  not.  Other  things  being  satisfactory,  I  would 
certainly  not  have  baulked  at  the  swallowing  of  that 
prize-pill ;  but  the  fact  that  my  pride  was  already  roused 
to  an  abnormal  pitch  by  the  interference  of  Mrs.  Hobbes 
in  this  affair,  gave  the  point  of  the  dukedom  undue  and 
perverse  importance.  To  receive  from  the  slender,  dis- 
dainful hands  of  Mrs.  Hobbes  a  duke  as  well  as  a  lover 
—  that  choked  me.  I  stood  there  strangling  on  that 
dizzy  balcony.  Nevertheless,  I  knew  that  if  only  Binky 
would  get  her  out  of  the  way,  shove  her  off  somehow, 
avow  her  to  me  frankly,  and  put  her  by  in  her  place 
definitely  on  a  top  shelf,  if  he  would  only  do  this,  then 
I  should  swallow  it  all.  And  it  was  with  that  last  reserve, 
that  poor  little  entrenchment  all  ready  and  waiting  to  be 
taken  by  storm,  that  I  went  to  him. 

"  He's  in  the  sitting-room,"  my  father  had  said,  while 
I  was  mentally  choking.  I  felt  his  eyes  follow  me 
wistfully.  Passing  my  dressing  table,  I  snubbed  the 
impulse  to  powder  my  nose,  and  hurried  into  the  next 
room. 

He  was  standing  with  his  back  to  the  lowered  window- 
screens  that  let  into  the  mild  dimness  of  the  big,  bare 
room,  little  blinding  lines  of  light.  He  was  dressed  in 
a  grey  flannel  suit,  rather  dusty  and  travel-creased,  and 


154  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

his  appearance  gave  me  a  distinct  shock.  He  was  quite 
as  handsome  as  I  remembered  him,  but  the  bronze  of 
his  skin,  the  white  of  his  teeth  and  blue-green  of  his 
eyes,  had  a  strange  stirring  physical  quality,  a  quality 
both  compelling  and  repulsive,  that  did  not  exist  in  my 
memory  of  him.  As  he  came  forward,  I  noticed  for 
the  first  time  a  scar  on  his  forehead,  and  my  eyes  were 
held  by  the  red,  moist  line  on  his  neck  where  his  collar 
rubbed,  and  I  was  acutely  conscious  of  his  perspiring 
body. 

"  No  end  of  people  sent  messages,"  he  was  saying. 
"  Molly  Tripp  loaded  me  down  with  'em  —  I  can't  remem- 
ber what  they  were.  You  know  the  sort  of  thing. 
Phipps  and  Dicky  and  Bobs  all  sent  their  hearts  in 
little  bundles."  He  laughed.  He  was  very  evidently 
embarrassed,  and  his  confusion  pleased  me.  I  had  never 
seen  him  like  this  before.  He  kept  darting  shy  glances 
at  me  and  then  looking  away.  The  boyish,  bright  timidity 
on  his  face  was  comical.  It  made  me  wonder.  It  both 
pleased  and  displeased  me.  As  a  tribute  to  myself  it 
pleased,  but  it  shed  a  new  and  disconcerting  light  on 
his  character.  I  had  expected  him  to  be  a  most  accom- 
plished lover.  It  occurred  to  me  now  that  he  couldn't 
be  so  very  wicked  or  so  very  wise  about  women  after  all. 
What,  then,  of  that  past  experience  of  his  that  so  im- 
pressed me? 

I'm  sure  that  it  was  then  that  I  had  my  first  suspicion 
of  him,  of  his  being  one  of  those  people  who  go  through 
experiences  without  ever  experiencing  much  of  anything. 
As  I  watched,  from  the  depths  of  my  wicker  chair, 
his  nervous,  lackadaisical  movements,  I  had  for  one 
instant  a  flash  of  insight,  I  even  half  articulated  the 
accusation  "  shallow,"  and  then  as  my  eyes  dwelt  on 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  155 

his  superb  self,  so  full  of  potential  fire,  and  heard  his 
quick  voice  enunciating  little  terse  words  in  that,  to  me, 
exquisite  diction  of  the  well-educated  Englishman,  I 
dismissed  my  suspicion.  It  was  impossible  for  me  then 
to  trust  my  instinct  against  the  evidence  of  my  eyes 
and  ears.  And  how  was  I  to  know  that  he  was  merely 
one  of  his  class,  the  complete  and  meaningless  output 
of  a  very  finished  system?  An  American  like  that,  of 
equal  brilliance  and  attractiveness,  would  have  achieved 
it  by  some  rare  innate  quality,  by  some  splendid  energy 
of  his  own. 

He  began  walking  about  the  big  cement  room,  fling- 
ing his  legs  aimlessly  as  though  to  shake  off  his  shoes, 
and  evidently  trying  to  screw  up  his  courage. 

"  I've  got  to  go  back  tonight.  You  know  what  I've 
come  for,  I  s'pose  ?  "  He  turned  to  me  with  an  effort 
to  obliterate  all  expression  from  his  face  and  a  straighten- 
ing movement  of  his  shoulders.  Then,  as  he  looked 
down  on  me,  he  smiled  charmingly.  "  Oh,  my  dear, 
you  do  look  ripping  like  that.  Your  hair  is  like  velvet 
with  little  crinkles."  He  beamed  down  on  me  in  that 
quick  sunny  way  of  his,  and  my  heart  fluttered.  I  did 
love  that  sunny  look  of  his  so,  and  I  still  like  it.  It's 
the  very  nicest  thing  about  Binky.  It  means  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing  but  good  health  and  a  vacuum  where 
his  imagination  ought  to  be,  but  it  is  nice,  very  nice,  just 
in  itself,  and  you  must  always  think  of  him  with  it, 
spreading  from  him  and  about  him  like  a  nimbus. 

"  I  wrote  to  your  father,"  he  went  on,  turning  half 
away.  "  But  before  I  ask  you  anything,  I  want  to  tell 
you  something,  something  about  myself."  His  momen- 
tary solemnity  gave  way  to  the  mockery  he  always  sum- 
moned to  cover  embarrassment,  "  It's  a  kind  of  little  con- 


156  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

f  ession."  He  laughed,  drew  a  chair  across  the  shining  floor, 
and  sat  down  near  me. 

I  must  have  beamed  too  then,  for  a  weight  was  lifted 
suddenly.  He  was  going  to  tell  me  everything,  and  it 
would  come  right  after  all.  I  would  forgive.  What 
could  I  not  forgive  if  he  confessed  to  me?  That  confes- 
sion would  prove  the  truth  of  the  happy  tribute  of  his 
admiring  glance,  it  would  prove  that  he  cared.  My  anger 
had  all  ebbed  away.  I  gripped  my  hands  together  to  keep 
from  throwing  them  out  towards  him. 

"  I'm  not  such  an  awfully  bad  chap.  Not  so  very  dif- 
ferent from  other  fellows."  It  was  not  a  good  begin- 
ning. I  felt  slightly  chilled.  Why  this  self-justification? 
Why  excuse  ?  I  didn't  want  him  to  be  ashamed.  I  only 
wanted  him  to  acknowledge  the  past  and  say  he  loved 
me  best.  I  wanted  the  tribute  of  his  confidence,  but  I 
didn't  want  him  to  defile  the  dignity  of  his  other  affair. 
Mine  should  be  the  honour  of  replacing  the  other,  of 
obliterating,  not  a  shameful  but  a  beautiful  image.  My 
thoughts  raced  ahead,  putting  into  his  mouth  the  words 
I  wanted  him  to  say,  and  then  I  realized  that  he  was 
speaking  his  own  words. 

"  I've  only  got  a  little  more  than  my  pay,  you  see. 
We're  devilish  poor  in  our  family.  Have  been  for  ages. 
Estates  all  entailed,  and,  of  course,  you  can't  be  in  a 
cavalry  regiment  and  live  like  a  hermit.  You  see  what 
I'm  driving  at.  It's  disgusting,  I  know.  I  suppose  you'll 
think  it's  beneath  contempt,  being  in  debt.  You  despise 
me,  don't  you?  I  can  see  it  in  your  eyes." 

I  managed  to  murmur :  "  Despise  you  ?  No,  of 
course  not."  I  was  utterly  confused. 

But  he  didn't  believe  me,  and  went  on.  "  You  see,  I 
wanted  you  to  know  the  worst  about  me."  It  was  really 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  157 

very  painful  for  him.  He  was  scarlet.  "  I  owe  about 
five  thousand  pounds."  He  plunged  into  gloom. 

And  I  was  so  surprised  that  I  could  think  of  nothing 
to  say.  So  this  was  his  confession. 

It  could  not  be.  It  must  be  just  a  preamble,  a  lead- 
ing up  to  the  real  subject.  But  he  had  said  he  wanted 
me  to  know  the  worst,  and  he  considered  this  to  be  the 
worst.  Doubtless  it  was  the  worst,  and  he  needn't  have 
told  me  at  all.  I  didn't  want  to  hear  about  his  sins,  I 
wanted  him  to  place  me  in  his  life  along  with  that  other 
woman.  I  wanted  him  to  make  it  clear  to  me,  all  of 
it.  It  was  ridiculous  of  him  to  tell  me  about  his  debts. 
I  laughed. 

He  looked  up  at  the  sound  of  my  laugh.  "  You  don't 
quite  despise  me  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no."  I  dismissed  the  subject  lightly,  wanting 
to  get  on  to  the  seriously  interesting  thing. 

"  You  see,  I  don't  want  your  f athe*r  to  pay  them ; 
I  only  wanted  you  to  know."  I  shivered.  So  he  had 
thought  about  my  father  paying  his  debts.  The  idea  had 
come  into  his  head  to  be  repudiated.  The  thought  of 
my  father's  wealth  was  in  his  mind,  uppermost  in  his 
mind.  His  own  poverty  and  my  wealth;  but,  of  course, 
why  hadn't  I  thought  of  that  before?  I  was  an  heir- 
ess! And  my  father  had  said  just  now  something 
about  my  being  a  duchess.  It  was  the  same  old  story. 
They  had  told  me  at  home.  It  was  what  the  world 
expected  of  me;  what  Iroquois,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Mrs.  Hobbes,  on  the  other,  expected  of  me.  But  no  one 
of  that  set  had  ever  told  me  that  their  Binky  was  heir 
to  a  duke.  They  had  taken  a  mean  advantage  of  me. 
I  was  in  love  with  him  already.  I  was  in  love  with 
him,  and  he  didn't  even  think  of  my  being  jealous  of 


158  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

that  other  woman,   so   he   couldn't   care,  not  one  rap. 

I  got  up  from  my  chair  and  walked  over  to  the 
window.  All  the  anger  that  had  been  smouldering  under 
my  hope,  blazed  up  now.  I  saw  it  all.  I  was  sick  with 
humiliation. 

"  So  you  are  going  to  be  a  duke,  some  day  ?  "  I 
threw  the  words  jerkily  at  him,  over  my  shoulder. 

"  I  suppose  so.  You  see,  my  uncle  hasn't  any  chil- 
dren, and " 

I  cut  him  short.  "  I  understand  that  you  are  propos- 
ing to  me.  Am  I  right?"  I  turned,  surveying  him 
coldly,  by  a  tremendous  effort. 

"  Yes,  you  are.  I  —  you  —  you  must  have  seen  how 
you  attracted  me  —  you  must  have  seen  how  awfully  I 
liked  you."  He  moved  a  step  nearer.  "  Oh,  my  dear, 
I'm  an  ass  —  I  can't  say  things."  I  burst  into  tears. 
He  stood  irresolute.  He  was  floored.  What  on  earth 
could  I  be  crying  about?  Binky  is  horribly  afraid  of 
tears.  He  hates  to  see  weak  things  suffer.  He  is  very 
tender-hearted  when  you  make  an  obvious  spectacular 
appeal  to  his  sympathy.  His  sympathy  now  came 
uppermost.  He  took  me1  very  gently  and  nicely  in  his 
arms.  His  impulse  was  to  soothe,  protect,  and  en- 
courage. 

"  There,  there,  kiddy  dear,  never  mind.  If  you  don't 
like  me,  never  mind.  Don't  take  it  so  hard." 

For  one  moment  I  lay  there  deliciously,  my  face  against 
his  coat,  hoping  against  hope  that  by  some  miracle  he 
would  understand,  would  give  me  my  proof ;  but  his  little 
muttered,  caressing  words,  sweet  as  they  were,  put 
the  final  touch  to  my  despair,  and  I  pulled  away,  baring 
my  face,  with  its  tear-stains,  to  his  eyes. 

"  No,  it's  no  use ;  you  don't  understand.     It  doesn't 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  159 

matter.  I  don't  know  why  I  cried.  Please  go  away. 
I  can't  marry  you;  I  don't  want  to  marry  you.  It's 
only  nerves ! " 

I  said  too  much.  I  realized  I  was  saying  too  much. 
A  clever  man  would  have  seen  through  it,  but  Binky  isn't 
clever,  poor  dear! 

He  slunk  away,  and  I  watched  him,  scarcely  able  to 
keep  from  rushing  to  bring  him  back.  I  might  just 
as  well  have  done  it  then. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

I  UNDERSTAND  perfectly  now  what  I  did  not 
understand  then.  It  has  put  itself  together,  bit 
bit  by  bit,  until  it  is  all  quite  complete.  I  see  how 
inevitable  and,  from  their  point  of  view,  how  right  it 
was.  I  don't  mean  right  in  the  sense  that  it  satisfied 
her  conscience  or  his.  You  must  remember  that  they  are 
more  civilized  than  I.  They  neither  of  them  possess  a 
conscience,  but  their  course  of  action  in  regard  to  me 
satisfied  what  they  have  in  place  of  it,  a  rigid  and  abso- 
lute sense  of  the  ultimate  fitness  of  things. 

Claire  was  here  a  couple  of  months  ago.  We  get  on 
rather  well.  Why  shouldn't  she  come?  Binky  likes 
having  her  here.  She's  so  just  the  right  sort  of  per- 
son for  this  place ;  and,  of  course,  it's  a  great  score  from 
his  point  of  view  to  get  Britton.  Britton  scarcely  goes 
anywhere,  you  see,  and  she  brings  him.  I  suppose  from 
Binky  to  Britton  could  be  called  promotion;  anyhow,  as 
Ruffles  so  nicely  put  it,  Britton  wiped  Binky's  eye  for 
him  long  ago,  and  there's  no  question  now  of  her  letting 
me  hand  him  back  to  her. 

I  think  Claire  almost  pities  me  now.  There  she  has 
the  advantage.  I  can't  pity  her.  I  can  only  admire  her 
pluck.  Really,  she's  quite  wonderful  in  her  way,  and 
her  complexion  is  as  perfect  as  ever.  You'd  think  all 
the  bitterness  that  she  has  tasted  would  have  withered 
her  lips,  but  it  hasn't.  You'd  imagine  that  all  the  dust 
of  disillusion  that  has  passed  over  her  would  have 

160 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  161 

dimmed  and  speckled  her  shining  surface.  Not  at  all. 
She's  as  impervious  to  the  deposits  of  time  as  a  glazed 
china  vase.  She  allows  no  vestige  of  despair  or  discon- 
tent to  settle  visibly  upon  her.  I  suppose  she  turns  her 
complete  cynicism  on  to  herself  daily,  as  a  kind  of 
vacuum  cleaner. 

We  had  tea  on  the  south  terrace  the  other  afternoon 
alone,  she  and  Binky  and  I.  Binky  had  his  arm  in  a 
sling.  Every  one  else  was  shooting,  and  it  wasn't  until 
the  very  middle  of  tea  —  I  had  my  cup  half-way  to  my 
lips  —  that  it  struck  me  as  at  all  strange,  our  being  there, 
quite  placidly  together,  we  three.  It  was  a  remarkably 
still  afternoon  for  October,  still  and  golden  and  quite 
warm  in  the  sun.  The  air  was  crystal  clear,  and  the 
yellow  leaves  of  the  beeches  at  the  bottom  of  the  tennis- 
lawns  were  motionless.  It  was  her  kind  of  an  after- 
noon, and  truly  she  was  good  to  look  at,  sitting  as  still 
as  marble  with  her  head  outlined  against  the  grey  stone 
of  the  south  wall.  In  that  sudden  moment  I  gazed  at  her 
motionless  head  desperately.  My  eyes  clung  to  it  for 
the  support  of  my  brain.  It  was  so  fixed,  so  proud,  so 
untarnished,  that  it  gave  the  lie  to  my  sudden  over- 
whelming sense  of  unreality.  She  saved  me,  just  the 
look  of  her.  One  couldn't,  you  know,  accuse  her  of  be- 
ing base,  or  vulgar,  and  so  one  came  back  to  the  same 
conclusion  that  everything  was  as  it  should  be. 

I  remember,  as  I  lifted  the  cup  again  to  my  lips,  that 
it  seemed  an  age  since  the  last  sip.  I  had  been  all  the 
way  back  to  my  mother's  room,  and  I  seemed  to  return 
from  a  great  distance  to  hear  their  voices  going  on  about 
horses.  They  mostly  do  talk  about  horses,  she  and 
Binky.  The  technical  completeness  of  her  vocabulary 
in  this  respect  is  amazing.  I  couldn't  attempt  to 


1 62  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

duce  it  for  you.  I  can't  even  understand  it.  I  didn't 
understand  then,  or  try  to;  but  the  staccato  tune  of  the 
short  sentences  they  tossed  to  one  another  acted  on  my 
nerves  as  a  tonic. 

One  can't  blame  Claire  Hobbes  or  even  criticize  her. 
One  doesn't  accuse  a  sausage  machine  of  being  unkind  be- 
cause it  grinds  up  little  animals  into  sausage-meat.  I 
don't  mean  to  be  nasty,  but  Claire  is  as  inexorable  as 
that.  She  fulfils  herself  perfectly  and  obeys  the  laws 
that  have  made  her,  and  the  laws  that  have  made  her 
are  the  laws  of  English  society. 

You  see,  it  was  an  established  fact  that  Binky  should 
marry  some  one  with  money.  Everybody  had  united 
to  establish  it ;  his  uncle  and  his  aunt,  his  cousins  Clemen- 
tine and  Monica,  his  mother  and  his  brothers,  and  having 
established  it,  they  all  lived  on  the  strength  of  it.  On 
the  strength  of  it,  the  duke  went  to  Monte  Carlo  every 
winter,  and  on  the  same  principle  Clem  and  Monica  were 
allowed  to  amuse  themselves  with  artists,  and  remain 
single,  while  Binky's  younger  brothers  settled  down  with 
sweet  young  brides  on  nothing  at  all.  I  was  vital  to 
them,  absolutely  vital.  Without  me  the  dear  duke  could 
not  have  been  permitted  to  lose  his  hundreds  at  the 
tables,  without  me  Clem  could  never  have  had  her  futurist 
bedroom  or  Monica  her  penniless  sweethearts.  The  girls 
talked  about  me  ages  before,  as  though  I  actually  were 
in  the  flesh,  and  they  sized  me  up  pretty  well  in  prospect. 
They  felt  certain  I  wouldn't  be  ugly  and  that  I  would  be 
young,  and  the  betting  was  that  I  would  be  an  American, 
for  they  knew  he  would  marry  no  one  with  or  without 
money  who  wasn't  nice-looking,  and  they  knew,  so  they 
said,  that  no  older  beauty  would  be  taken  in  by  him,  and 
they  felt,  like  every  one  else,  that  there  were  more  pretty 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  163 

heiresses  with  appetites  for  titles  in  the  United  States 
than  in  Australia. 

Yes.  His  meeting  with  me  was  one  of  those  happy 
turns  of  circumstance,  when  head  and  heart  and  the 
wishes  of  one's  relations  are  all  in  perfect  accord.  He 
did  not  analyse  his  feelings  or  question  his  own  motives, 
nor  any  one  else's  for  that  matter.  Analysis  is  not  in 
his  line.  Obviously,  fate  had  thrown  this  jolly  little 
heiress  in  his  way.  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  he  thought 
of  me  as  a  jolly  little  heiress,  in  spite  of  my  longness  and 
my  sombre  eyes,  and  my  general  effect  of  mingled 
languor  and  fierceness.  The  term  would  have  nothing 
in  it  descriptive  of  me,  but  would  express  somehow, 
satisfactorily  to  himself,  his  attitude  towards  me. 
There  was  doubtless,  something  miraculous  about  my 
appearance  on  the  scene.  It  looked  as  though  it  had  been 
arranged  by  Providence  expressly  for  him,  but,  then, 
so  many  things  had  been  so  arranged,  why  not  this  too? 
It  was  no  good  suspecting  the  motives  of  fortune  any 
more  than  fighting  the  decrees  of  fate. 

If  old  Hobbes  could  have  been  persuaded  to  divorce 
his  wife,  that  is,  if  he,  Binky,  had  had  enough  money 
to  make  that  proposition  then,  undoubtedly,  he  would 
have  married  Claire.  He  might  have  had  it  all  fixed 
up  before  he  found  himself  heir  to  the  duke,  for  it  was 
in  the  middle  of  their  six  years'  love  affair  that  his  cousin 
Bertie  was  killed. 

The  difficulty  had  always  been  financial.  He  had  only 
four  hundred  a  year  over  his  pay.  I  supposed  they 
agreed  that  it  wasn't  worth  it.  She  had  a  concise  way 
of  valuing  things.  Undoubtedly  they  understood  each 
other  perfectly,  and  when  his  cousin  died  then  only  one 
thing  remained  to  be  done :  to  find  me. 


164  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  say,  they  understood  each  other,  but  I  don't  mean 
that  Binky  ever  understood  the  workings  of  Claire's  mind 
or  heart.  It  was  certainly  a  part  of  her  creed  that  he 
shouldn't.  She  understood  him,  and  he  knew  that  and 
he  believed  that  he  had  made  her  happy.  They  had  en- 
joyed each  other,  with  scarce  a  break,  for  nearly  six  years. 
What  more  could  any  two  people  want  of  each  other! 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Binky  was  well  satisfied  with  it 
all. 

Why  not?  He  is  not  more  stupid  than  most  men. 
Claire  Hobbes  gave  him  exactly  what  he  wanted  and 
no  more.  It  was  just  that  restraint  of  hers  that  I  find 
wonderful.  I  know  Binky ;  I  know  how  she  must  have 
felt  sometimes,  but  she  never  let  him  see.  She  had  never 
been  given  to  tears  or  moods  or  emotional  self-indulgence. 
She  must  have  gauged  accurately,  at  the  beginning,  the 
measure  of  her  happiness,  the  measure  of  what  he  could 
give  her.  She  never  tricked  herself  into  extravagant 
hopes.  He  gave  her  all  that  was  in  him  to  give,  that 
she  knew,  and  she  never  tried  to  make  him  into  some- 
thing that  he  was  not.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  she  had  kept 
him  for  six  years  all  her  own,  as  far  as  women  were 
concerned,  was  all  she  asked  of  life.  I  can  see  her 
calmly  and  definitely  bargaining  with  fate:  she  on  her 
side  was  never  to  let  on  that  she  wanted  anything  more 
than  his  even  light-hearted  attention  and  half-humorous 
love-making;  and  fate  was  to  let  her  hold  him  until  the 
time  came  to  give  him  to  me.  It  was  a  part,  too,  of 
her  understanding  with  a  fate  that  had  been  good  to  her 
on  the  whole,  that  she  had  to  be  very  particular  about  me, 
very  fastidious  in  her  choice  of  his  wife. 

This  last  obligation  must  have  been  particularly  hard 
for  her  when  the  time  came.  She  recognized  me  as  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  165 

person,  at  once,  but  what  must  have  made  her  wince 
was  that  he  recognized  me  too.  His  immediate  response, 
so  Molly  Tripp  told  me,  was  as  gall  to  her.  Yet  she 
drank  it  down  without  a  grimace.  And  this  was  the  more 
plucky  because  she  was  imaginative  enough  to  foresee 
everything.  She  must  lose  him  altogether,  she  would 
be  obliged  to  watch  him  succumb  gradually  more  and 
more  completely  to  what  she  told  Molly  was  my  extrava- 
gant and  impudent  charm.  Yet  she  decided  in  a  few 
days.  It  was,  of  course,  as  she  knew,  a  matter  for  her 
to  decide,  and  neither  her  face  nor  her  voice  played  her 
false  when  she  gave  him  his  freedom.  I  am  sure  of 
this,  as  sure  as  if  I  had  been  there.  Their  final  scene  as 
lovers  was  as  terse  as  most  of  their  conversations.  She 
did  not  even  indulge  herself  in  making  clear  that  this 
was  really  the  end.  He  would  find  that  out  soon  enough. 
She  let  him  go  to  Bombay  without  any  final  flare  of 
passion,  without  any  of  that  solacing  fire  which  might 
have  assuaged  her  pain.  He  just  went;  happily  and 
vaguely,  not  foreseeing  anything. 

Molly  meet  her  driving  back  from  the  station,  where 
she  had  seen  him  off.  She  was  lashing  the  pony  and 
swearing  in  a  low,  devilish  voice,  as  Molly  climbed  up 
beside  her.  It  seems  that  his  immediate  departure,  the 
ardour  it  evidenced,  had  driven  the  whole  thing  home 
to  her  horribly.  She  didn't  say  much ;  merely  remarked, 
with  a  laugh,  that  that  little  chit  wasn't  the  kind  of 
girl  who  would  bore  a  man. 

You  see,  we  appreciate  each  other.  She,  on  her  side, 
was  afraid  that  I  should  discover  things  in  Binky  that 
she  had  longed  for  but  never  found ;  and  I  —  I  have 
always  felt,  until  quite  recently,  that  he  must  have  given 
her  more  than  he  gave  me.  Now,  as  on  the  terrace  the 


1 66  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

other  day,  we  sit  beside  him,  one  on  either  side,  and 
marvel  distantly  at  one  another. 

In  the  meantime,  while  she  was  recklessly  driving 
Molly  to  the  gymkhana  and  swearing  at  the  pony,  Binky 
made  himself  comfortable  in  the  train  and  calculated  his 
debts.  He  would  have  to  tell  me  about  his  debts;  that 
was  the  terrible  thought  that  disturbed  his  journey. 
What  should  I  think  about  debts  ?  Should  I  despise  him 
for  them  ?  He  hadn't  the  least  idea.  He  was  not  at  all 
sure  that  I  should  not  despise  him.  It  was  so  "  differ- 
ent." My  being  "  different "  was  disquieting.  He  owed 
in  all  about  five  thousand  pounds.  Perhaps  this  sum 
would  seem  to  me  like  five  shillings.  He  devoutly  hoped 
so.  Dash  it,  he  didn't  want  my  father  to  pay  them !  He 
only  wanted  me  to  know  the  worst  about  him.  Yes,  cer- 
tainly he  considered  this  the  worst,  in  fact,  the  only  seri- 
ous thing  written  against  him  in  the  Book  of  God.  He 
felt  hot  and  ashamed  over  it,  and  began  to  wonder  whether 
he'd  have  the  nerve  to  tell  me,  and  then  some  men  got 
hold  of  him  for  bridge  and  he  forgot  it  all.  He  forgot 
so  successfully  that  he  lost  all  his  immediate  cash  and 
some  more,  and  had  to  give  one  of  the  men  a  post-dated 
cheque.  He  arrived  at  the  Taj  Mahal  with  a  return  ticket 
and  ten  rupees  in  his  pocket.  He  had  never  minded  this 
sort  of  thing  before,  but  he  was  on  the  point  of  proposing 
to  a  fortune,  and  he  has  a  certain  taste  in  superstitious 
values.  His  immediate  pennilessness  started  him  off 
badly  with  me.  When  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
his  jolly  little  heiress,  he  felt  embarrassed.  Two  or  three 
gold  pieces  to  jingle  about  in  his  pocket  would  have  made 
all  the  difference. 

I've  no  doubt  he  felt  this  when  I  refused  him.  He 
would  curse  his  luck  and  damn  the  bridge  he'd  played 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  167 

on  the  train.  Such  is  the  quality  of  Binky's  mind.  It's 
funny  when  you  contrast  his  state  of  mind  with  mine,  at 
that  moment.  I  was  certain  he  was  full  of  Claire  Hobbes, 
full  of  self-condemnation  and  cowardly  passion,  and  vio- 
lently painful  deceptions.  I  let  him  go,  told  my  father 
briefly  that  I  had  refused  him,  and  then  proceeded  to  live 
with  this  idea  of  him,  while  I  grew  thinner,  and  more  and 
more  gloomy. 

My  father  was  in  the  habit  of  leaving  me  alone.  He 
did  not  meddle  with  my  conduct  or  inquire  into  my 
dreams.  We  had  been  constantly  together  for  four  years. 
Our  understanding  did  not  need  demonstration,  and  the 
more  complete  this  understanding,  the  more  impersonal 
became  our  manner  to  one  another.  We  forgot  that  we 
were  bound  together  by  any  ties,  save  those  of  mutual  re- 
spect and  enjoyment.  Only  in  rare  instances  did  we  be- 
come suddenly  aware  of  the  incalculable  depths  of  feel- 
ing which  underlay  our  seemingly  prosaic,  pleasant  inter- 
course. 

My  refusal  of  Binky  was  one  of  these  instances.  Quite 
obviously  the  affair  made  me  ill,  and  my  father  watching 
me,  suffered ;  but  he  said  nothing.  His  reticence,  the  re- 
spect he  had  for  the  privacy  of  my  life,  was  an  evidence 
of  the  instinct  of  a  father  who  never  abused  his  paternity. 

I  should  have  gone  mad  if  he  had  questioned  me.  He 
knew  that.  Probably,  at  first,  when  I  told  him  that  I  had 
refused  the  man,  he  was  glad.  He  did  not  want  to  lose 
me.  Quite  selfishly  he  must  have  been  glad,  but  in  the 
face  of  my  misery  his  gladness  vanished.  I  believe  I 
really  tried  to  hide  my  feelings.  On  the  way  to  Suez  I 
did  my  best  to  flirt  with  some  subalterns.  I  played  the 
piano  every  night  on  deck,  and  danced  and  laughed  a  great 
deal  too  much,  but  he  saw  through  it,  and  I  couldn't  help 


1 68  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

getting  thin.  I  remember  one  night  in  Cairo,  watching 
him  from  my  balcony.  He  spent  two  or  three  hours  in 
the  garden,  walking  up  and  down  in  the  scented  palm- 
fringed  night.  At  regular  intervals  his  figure  would 
appear  through  the  trees,  in  the  light  of  the  hotel  win- 
dows, his  head  bent,  his  hands  clasped  behind  him.  I 
knew  he  was  thinking  about  me,  and  coming  to  under- 
stand that  I  wanted  this  man  with  a  particular  gnaw- 
ing, physical  pain,  uncommon,  perhaps,  to  most  girls. 
He  must  have  come  to  see,  then,  that  I  was  more  sensual 
than  the  traditional  woman.  I'm  sure  there  was  noth- 
ing ugly  to  him  in  the  idea  of  sensuality.  He  believed 
in  first  love  and  in  the  physical  poetry  of  youth.  He  had 
loved  my  mother  suddenly  and  lastingly,  and  out  of  his 
own  experience  he  believed. 

The  night  was  voluptuous  and  heavy  with  sweetness. 
The  stars  seemed  to  swoon  in  the  amorous  sky,  and  my 
heart  burned.  I  imagined  my  lover  beside  me,  and 
trembled  at  the  conjured  sense  of  his  touch.  I  did  not 
analyse  my  longing  or  find  my  feeling  for  him  lacking  in 
any  way,  but  all  the  time,  in  the  midst  of  my  delirium,  I 
had  a  sense  of  shame  and  humiliation ;  I  knew  that  I 
was  in  love  with  a  man  who  did  not  love  me,  who  loved 
another  woman  and  belonged  to  her.  This  I  had  forced 
myself  to  face  as  the  all-important  fact.  I  had  stared  at 
it,  night  and  day,  for  a  month,  hoping  that  it  would  some- 
how wither  up  and  destroy  my  infatuation.  I  was  deter- 
mined to  be  free  of  him. 

And  then  I  had  a  letter  from  him.  He  merely  said 
that  he'd  had  a  nasty  fall  at  polo  a  week  before,  had 
broken  his  left  arm,  and  that  the  doctors  didn't  know  but 
that  something  serious  was  the  matter  with  his  spine,  so 
he  just  wanted  to  write,  in  case  —  to  tell  me  that  if  he 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  169 

was  pronounced  a  cripple  he  was  going  to  get  out  of  this 
world,  and  I  must  know  he  cared  about  me  more  than  I 
thought,  so  please  not  to  think  meanly  of  him.  It  ended 
up :  "  My  dear,  I  don't  think  you  understand  me,  or 
ever  will;  and  I  wonder  what  in  blazes  made  you  cry. 
I've  thought  a  lot  about  it.  It  stumps  me;  but  don't 
ever  again  —  over  me,  anyway  —  I'm  not  worth  it. 
Yours,  all  the  same,  *  Binky.' "  It  was  a  scrawl  and  a 
scrap,  and  it  upset  all  that  I  had  been  trying  to  accom- 
plish. 

Molly  Tripp  added  to  my  pain  and  joy.  She  wrote 
in  a  scattered,  vivacious  way,  just  as  she  talked  — 
"  Binky  had  come  back  from  Bombay  in  the  devil  of  a 
temper.  Nobody  could  get  near  him  with  a  ten-foot 
pole.  What  had  I  done  to  him?  If  I  had  refused  him, 
well,  I  had  a  perfect  right  to;  Binky  was  a  dear,  but 
rather  conceited,  and  it  would  do  him  good  to  be  refused 
something  that  he  wanted.  He  was  sulking,  and  break- 
ing in  a  new  pony  in  the  maddest  style.  Possessed, 
absolutely  possessed.  Would  certainly  kill  himself  some 
day."  Then  later:  "Had  killed  himself  —  tried  to- 
Major  Smith,  the  surgeon,  said  it  might  be  serious.  She 
was  the  only  woman  in  the  station.  Claire  had  gone  to 
Simla,  so  she,  Molly,  sat  by  him  and  listened  to  him  in 
the  evenings.  She  didn't  know  if  she  ought  to  tell,  but 
he  kept  muttering  my  name  and  something  about  '  damn 
the  money ! '  "  And  so  the  letter  went  on,  until  a  third 
postscript,  evidently  a  week  later,  announced  that  there 
was  nothing  seriously  the  matter.  "  He  would  be  all 
right  in  a  few  weeks.  He  always  did  have  the  de'il's 
own  luck !  " 

Scrutiny  of  date  and  postmarks  revealed  that  his  letter 
had  missed  the  previous  mail,  so  he  was  safe,  and  the 


170  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

world  was  standing  on  its  head.  I  sat  on  the  terrace  of 
Shepherd's  Hotel  gazing  with  beaming  eyes  at  an  Arab, 
who  expected  every  minute  that  I  should  buy  the 
spangled  scarf  he  dangled  before  my  seemingly  entranced 
vision. 

It  seemed  after  all  that  he  did  care,  some,  anyway. 

How  was  I  to  know  that  Molly  had  lent  herself  to  the 
conspiracy?  I'm  not,  of  course,  certain,  even  now,  but 
I  suspect.  Molly,  you  see,  wanted  Binky  to  marry  me. 
She  thought  it  was  time  he  did  his  duty  by  society  and 
the  old  duke.  I  suspect  that  she  edited  Binky's  ravings 
a  bit.  If  my  name  was  on  Binky's  lips  once  in  his 
delirium,  Claire's  must  have  been  there  a  dozen  times. 
Claire  had  been  harsh  with  him  when  he  came  back 
from  Bombay,  and  had  gone  off  to  Simla.  Binky  must 
have  found  out  then,  for  the  first  time,  that  he  had  lost 
her  for  good.  He  had  fallen  between  two  stools,  and  the 
odds  are  that  he  felt  her  snub  the  most.  Poor  Binky ! 

As  for  me,  if  it  seems  that  I  was  lifted  out  of  drown- 
ing depths  upon  a  straw,  it  must  be  remembered  that  I 
wanted  to  be  lifted. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

BINKY  had  heavy  reinforcements  in  London.  He 
didn't  need  them;  I  had  already  been  defeated 
in  Cairo  by  those  letters ;  but  he  didn't,  of  course, 
know  this,  so  he  turned  them  all  on,  or  brought  them  all 
up,  whatever  the  term  is.  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  he 
deliberately  and  carefully  attacked  me  through  my  vanity. 
It  looked,  I  admit,  as  though  he  had  reasoned  it  all  out, 
just  how  being  presented  by  the  duchess  and  fussed  over 
by  a  lot  of  lords  and  generals  and  smiled  on  by  the  king 
would  affect  my  giddy  American  head,  but  Binky  isn't 
clever  enough  for  that.  He  must  have  just  quite  simply 
set  himself  to  giving  me  a  good  time  with  the  nice, 
vague  hope  I  should  find  him  a  better  sort  of  chap  than 
I  had  at  first  thought  him.  And  so  he  stirred  them  all 
into  action  for  my  amusement.  It's  funny  to  think  of 
the  stiff  old  generals  and  solid  dowagers  who  danced 
about  helping  Binky  to  capture  a  poor  child  who  was 
already  bound  and  gagged  by  her  infatuation.  I  suppose 
it  did  seem  flattering.  I  suppose  I  must  have  enjoyed 
it.  It  was  a  kind  of  antidote  to  that  other  humiliation. 
There  was  firstly  his  family,  made  up  of  his  uncle  the 
duke,  and  his  aunt,  his  cousins,  and  their  scenery ;  and  then 
there  were  all  their  friends,  with,  again,  their  scenery.  I 
mean  by  scenery  their  titles  and  coronets  and  histories, 
as  well  as  the  more  or  less  wonderful  houses  they  lived 
in  and  the  moors  and  deer  forests  they  tried  to  hold  on 

171 


172  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to,  and  the  great  array  of  elaborate  sports  and  amuse- 
ments they  went  in  for.  There  were  so  many  castles, 
such  endless  family  portraits,  such  yards  of  pearls,  and 
in  the  centre  of  it  all  was  the  duke  himself,  the  most 
deadly  of  all  the  weapons  aimed  against  me.  If  there 
had  been  nothing  else,  I  could  never  have  resisted  the 
duke.  When  he  waved  his  hand  in  the  direction  of  all 
those  turrets,  indicating  somehow  without  a  word  that 
he  was  gracefully,  and  with  perfect  delicacy,  giving  them 
to  me,  I  was  lost.  I  mean  I  should  have  been  lost  then, 
if  I  had  not  been  before.  He  was  so  marvellous  to  me, 
so  utterly  marvellous.  I  can  remember  standing  with  him 
that  morning  at  the  bottom  of  the  field  by  the  river,  and 
looking  back  at  the  castle,  fairly  choking  with  romantic 
joy.  It  is  certainly  big  enough,  and  some  of  it  is  old 
enough,  to  delight  any  tourist,  and  if  you  had  told  me 
then  that  I  should  come  to  dislike  the  place  intensely, 
I  should  not  even  have  taken  the  trouble  to  laugh  at 
you.  I  was  too  happy.  I  was  too  hopelessly  under  the 
spell  of  that  old  rake,  Binky's  uncle. 

You  must  have  seen  his  portrait  by  Moode,  done  in 
hunting  clothes.  It  is  the  absolute  embodiment  of  the 
romantic  idea  of  an  English  gentleman.  From  the  wave 
in  his  long  nose,  and  the  weary,  delicate  droop  of  his 
eyelids,  to  the  heel  of  his  boat,  he  is  exquisite ;  the  most 
beautiful  thing  in  decadent  and  decrepit  manhood  that 
ever  lived. 

But  there  were  others  besides  the  duke.  Not  quite  so 
fascinating,  but  all  startlingly  different  from  anything  I 
had  ever  met.  There  were,  for  instance,  Clem  and 
Monica.  Clem  and  Monica  were  the  constant  target  for 
Binky's  criticism  and  contempt,  but  I  gathered  that  he 
admired  them  enormously  all  the  same.  They  were  in 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  173 

themselves  perfectly  sustained  denials  of  the  actualities 
of  existence.  Therein  lay  their  charm.  They  were  both 
extremely  unhealthy  and  ungainly,  and  so  dowdy  in  their 
dress  that  I  thought  this,  like  everything  else  about  them, 
was  calculated,  but  I  don't  believe  it  was.  I  think  it  was 
simply  that  they'd  no  taste  and  no  time  for  clothes. 
Monica  is  sallow,  with  sunken,  flashing  eyes,  hollow 
cheeks  and  long  neck.  She  almost  always  wears  a  cerise 
or  green  ribbon  round  her  dark,  untidy  head,  and  she 
talks  with  her  chin  far  out,  like  a  Rossetti  picture. 
Clem  is  smaller  and  fair,  with  very  beautiful  feet,  which 
she  always  reveals  unstockinged  at  fancy-dress  balls. 
They  are  both  clever,  uncannily  clever;  and  their  clever- 
ness is  expended  in  transforming  all  the  ordinary 
activities  of  life  into  elaborate  and  fantastic  rites.  Going 
to  bed,  for  instance,  is  a  simple  enough  thing,  for  me,  at 
least.  I  simply  tumble  in,  roll  up  into  a  ball,  and  go 
to  sleep.  Not  so  with  Clem  and  Monica.  Monica  has 
a  black  bedroom  with  a  red  lacquer  bed  in  the  middle  of 
it,  an  extremely  high  bed.  One  ascends  by  a  flight  of 
steps,  and  enters  into  the  sombre  embrace  of  black 
crepe  de  chine  sheets.  Monica  wears  no  nightgown. 
Call  that  simplicity  if  you  like !  On  the  top  step  she 
sheds  her  dressing  gown  of  very  moth-eaten  golden  satin, 
and  lays  her  very  beautiful  body  between  the  black  sheets, 
and  smokes  little  Bulgarian  cigarettes  until  she  finally 
drops  off.  Only  a  few  chosen  friends  are  supposed  to 
know  this.  Clem's  room  is  white,  with  no  bed  at  all. 
She  sleeps  on  a  quilt  on  the  floor,  with  a  Japanese  wooden 
pillow  under  her  head. 

You  can  imagine  that  I  didn't  know  what  to  make  of 
them  —  I  don't  know  now.  They  were  older  than  I, 
centuries  older,  and  they  received  me  with  delicate  and 


174  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

subtle  cordiality,  and  I  warmed  to  them  hopefully.  I 
might  as  well  have  warmed  to  a  couple  of  goldfish. 

I  often  wonder  whether  there  are  any  simple  feelings 
left  in  them  at  all.  I  imagine  their  elaborated  pose  has 
become  for  them  the  most  real  thing  on  earth,  that  they 
couldn't  drop  it  now,  if  they  wanted  to.  It  is  impossible 
to  picture  them  mated  to  any  man,  or  going  through  any 
such  common  ordeal  as  having  babies,  though,  if  one 
could  have  suggested  any  new  and  eccentric  way  of  bring- 
ing a  child  into  the  world,  I'm  sure  they'd  be  charmed  to 
try  it. 

I  never  saw  them  kiss  their  mother  anywhere  except 
on  the  top  of  the  head,  an  attention  which  she  received 
with  a  grimace.  Aunt  Cora  has  a  sense  of  humour  — 
the  sort  of  humour  that  the  sphinx  of  Egypt  might  develop 
some  day.  One  gathered  that  she  despised  her  family, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  She  would  like  to  live  in 
the  country  all  the  year  round  and  knit  socks,  but  the  girls 
won't  let  her.  They  insist  on  the  fiction  that  their 
mother  is  interested  in  art.  They  used  to  put  her  in  her 
box  at  the  Russian  ballet  every  night,  where  she  sat 
staring  grimly  at  Chaliapine,  and  avenged  herself  by  using 
too  much  rouge.  She  never  used  to  go  to  Monte  Carlo 
with  the  duke,  but  sent  her  housekeeper  every  year,  at 
the  proper  moment,  to  bring  him  home.  I  wonder  if  I 
shall  ever  be  like  her!  Binky,  you  know,  had  taken  to 
going  to  Monte  Carlo  before  the  war. 

I'm  certain  Aunt  Cora  thinks  I'm  a  fool,  and  always 
has.  She  as  much  as  says  so.  All  the  same,  she's  fond 
of  me  in  her  grim  way. 

Anyhow  they  took  me  to  Court  with  them,  Clem  and 
Monica  and  Aunt  Cora,  and  then  to  innumerable  func- 
tions and  dances,  and  house-parties  and  elaborate  pseudo- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  175 

bohemian  suppers;  and  introduced  me  to  the  endless 
artists,  celebrities,  and  human  novelties  that  they  had 
gathered  about  them. 

It  was  all  rather  dazzling,  not  the  bohemian  part,  but 
the  formal  part.  There  were  so  many  jewels  and  so 
many  wonderful  names.  The  mere  business  of  getting 
names  straight  was  an  effort.  I  was  American  enough  to 
feel  it  a  little  queer  to  address  benevolent  or  terrible  old 
ladies  as  Lady  Jane,  Cora,  or  Bridget.  You  can't  under- 
stand, I  suppose,  the  superstitious  awe  that  Americans 
feel  for  titles.  It  is  one  of  those  senseless  things  that 
prove  us  so  snobbish  over  there.  I  must  have  felt  some- 
thing of  the  same  thing  at  first,  though  I  had  forgotten 
until  Louise  recalled  it  to  me  on  that  fatal  visit  of  hers. 
Funnily  enough,  she  had  never  been  to  see  me  here  before, 
and  it  was  too  much  for  her,  poor  child,  too  much  for 
her  to  carry  calmly,  I  mean.  She  simply  couldn't  help 
gasping  and  rolling  her  eyes  and,  so  to  speak,  smacking 
her  lips.  Doubtless  she  could  scarcely  contain  within 
herself  all  the  things  she  was  going  to  say  when  she  got 
back  to  Iroquois.  You  see,  then,  I  liked  Binky's  scenery 
awfully,  but  I  liked  him  much  better  than  any  of  his 
trappings. 

Although  my  father  wanted  to  get  home,  I  had  per- 
suaded him  to  take  a  house  in  London  for  the  season. 
He  must  have  known  that  that  meant  only  one  thing  — 
Binky.  There  was  some  sort  of  financial  railway  tangle 
in  America,  and  he  ought  to  have  been  there  to  untie  a 
few  railroads,  but  he  stayed.  I  fancy  that  house  in 
Arlington  Street  cost  him  a  good  deal  more  than  the 
rent  —  twenty  or  thirty  times  as  much  —  but  he  evidently 
saw  that  nothing  but  having  Binky  would  make  me 
happy.  And  you  must  remember  he  had  nothing  actually 


176  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

against  Binky.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  Mrs.  Hobbes 
affair.  If  he  had,  he  would  have  rushed  me  home  in  a 
special  armed  cruiser  if  necessary.  I  knew  that,  so  I 
told  him  nothing.  I  trembled  lest  he  discover,  for  I  saw 
that  if  he  did  discover  now,  I  should  have  to  fight  him. 
I  should  not  have  given  up  Binky,  even  for  him,  and,  of 
course,  I  didn't  think  much  about  the  money  difficulty. 
I  deceived  my  father,  not  because  I  was  afraid  he'd  cut 
me  off  without  a  penny  and  make  me  valueless  to  Binky, 
but  because  I  wanted  to  avoid  the  agony  of  defying  him. 
One  can't  avoid  agony.  One  merely  piles  it  up. 

It's  difficult  to  know  what  Binky  would  have  done  if 
my  father  had  discovered  him,  and  had  cut  me  off.  I 
think  he  would  have  committed  suicide.  He  couldn't 
have  married  me  without  the  money,  for  he'd  been 
gambling  heavily  on  the  strength  of  getting  me,  and  he 
couldn't  have  thrown  me  over.  Yes,  I'm  sure  he  would 
have  taken  the  easiest  way  out,  and  committed  suicide. 
He  tried  suicide  once  before.  That  was  in  Paris,  years 
ago,  before  I  knew  him,  on  account  of  the  same  thing 
—  money.  Binky's  difficulties  were  always  financial. 

To  eclipse  any  other  image,  or  rather  the  other  image 
in  Binky's  mind,  that  was  my  purpose,  and  I  threw 
myself  extravagantly  into  the  business  of  pleasing  him. 
I  carried  on  the  ridiculous  task  that  I  set  myself  on  the 
night  of  that  dinner  when  Ruffles  talked  so  much.  My 
idea  was  to  season  myself  to  his  taste,  and  I  went  about 
it  strangely  enough.  I  began  to  wear  jewels,  pearl  ear- 
rings and  a  chain  of  pearls.  I  never  went  anywhere  in 
the  daytime  without  three  dogs,  a  French  poodle,  a 
borzoi,  and  a  Great  Dane.  I  drove  a  tandem  in  the 
park  and  rode  a  little  mouse-coloured  pony,  and  culti- 
vated a  lot  of  what  I  thought  racy  slang.  It  must  all 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  177 

have  been  evident  to  my  father,  and  extremely  painful. 

I  was,  you  see,  rather  a  success  in  London;  circum- 
stances had  arranged  that,  and  I  valued  my  success  be- 
cause it  added  to  my  value  in  Binky's  eyes.  I  could 
tell,  or  at  least  I  imagined,  that  he  desired  me  the  more 
because  others  desired  me.  I  forgot  how  sweet  he  had 
been  that  morning,  after  my  defeat  at  Ruffles'  hands.  I 
was  only  conscious  of  his  pleasure  in  my  little  triumphs. 
There  is  no  jealousy  in  Binky.  He  is  too  shallow  and 
too  sweet-natured  to  be  jealous.  It  doesn't  occur  to 
him  that  other  people  may  be  trying  to  get  things  away 
from  him.  He's  a  generous  creature,  and  very  sure 
of  himself.  He  felt,  in  those  days,  that  I  was  bound  to 
be  his,  and  so  he  enjoyed  watching  other  people  amuse 
me.  I  remember  him  as  continually  standing  in  door- 
ways, watching  me  with  that  bright,  quizzical  look,  as 
though  fearfully  pleased  and  amused  at  the  way  I 
enjoyed  myself.  Now  and  then  at  a  dance  he  would 
dash  across  to  me,  fling  me  a  shower  of  little  remarks, 
claim  a  waltz,  and  then  let  some  one  else  carry  me  off 
again.  His  attitude  piqued  me. 

Once,  after  three  days'  yachting,  during  which  time 
he  spent  every  afternoon  down  below  playing  bridge  with 
three  men,  and  the  evenings  too,  I  lost  my  temper.  I 
snubbed  him,  to  his  utter  amazement.  He  was  so  de- 
jected and  mystified  that  I  grew  more  and  more  angry. 
He  was  floored,  he  was  damned.  What  the  devil  had 
he  done?  Eventually  he  hit  upon  the  happy  idea  that  I 
was  spoiled.  That  seemed  to  him  to  solve  the  whole 
mystery.  Of  course,  I  was  spoiled,  and  being  angry 
made  me  awfully  pretty.  He  actually  explained  it  all  to 
me,  and  said  my  tantrums  amused  him.  It  was  quite 
hopeless,  I  could  never  make  him  see.  I  realized  that 


178  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

he  had  at  no  time  the  vaguest  conception  of  what  was 
going  on  in  my  mind.  Possibly,  at  this  stage,  things 
might  have  taken  a  different  turn,  my  brain  might  even 
then  have  begun  working  lucidly  and  disastrously  for 
his  matrimonial  plans,  had  not  something  happened  on 
the  Indian  frontier,  something  in  the  way  of  an  Afghan 
raid. 

All  at  once  Binky  was  a  changed  man.  You  could 
fairly  see  him  sniffing  up  the  smell  of  powder  five  thou- 
sand miles  distant.  He  was  mad  to  be  off,  and  under 
the  pressure  of  this  excitement,  he  burst  in  on  me  one 
evening. 

Would  I  marry  him?  Would  I  promise?  God,  I 
must  promise !  If  he  couldn't  come  back  for  me,  would 
I  come  out  to  India?  He  adored  me.  He  did  so  awfully 
want  me,  for  ever  and  ever,  all  for  himself. 

He  took  me  suddenly  in  his  arms,  crushing  me,  hurt- 
ing my  shoulders  and  breasts.  His  voice  sounded  broken 
and  queer.  There  were  tears  in  his  eyes. 

"  Kiddy,  dear,  you  mustn't  think  me  a  fool.  Nobody's 
ever  seen  me  like  this  before.  I  didn't  want  you  to.  I 
hate  anybody  to  know  what  I  feel.  I  love  you !  I  want 
you  dreadfully.  You're  so  sweet,  my  heart,  you  don't 
know.  I  may  seem  a  casual  sort  of  beggar,  but  I  hide 
lots  of  things  —  you're  so  awfully  sweet.  You  must 
marry  me !  "  He  hid  his  face  in  my  bosom  and  cried, 
and  I  thought  of  him  at  the  head  of  his  cavalry  in  the 
furious  dust  and  smoke  of  battle,  and  I  was  satisfied. 
I  was  exalted.  I  believed  'everything  he  said,  and  saw 
in  the  break-up  of  his  reserve,  not  the  weak  expression 
of  a  shallow  emotion,  but  the  evidence  of  great  depths 
of  love.  So  with  a  little  shuddering  murmur  I  gave  in, 
and  he  kissed  me.  He  pressed  his  careful,  closed  lips, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  179 

with  their  hard  bristly  moustache,  tight  against  my  mouth, 
and  I  shivered,  not  with  the  shock  of  this  contact,  but 
with  the  shiver  of  virginity,  that  curious,  unreal  sensa- 
tion produced  by  vague  imaginings,  faint,  elusive  promises 
of  mysterious  experience,  and  the  delicious  super-physical 
appeal  of  a  lover's  personality. 


CHAPTER  Six 

ABOUT  a  fortnight  before  this  I  had  heard  from 
Jim.  It's  easy  enough  to  understand  that  letter 
now.  I  didn't  then  because  my  eyes  and  ears 
were  full  of  Binky,  my  wits  taken  up  with  the  anomaly 
of  his  many  attentions  and  his  indifference.  Jim's  letter 
was  a  cry  for  help.  There's  no  possible  doubt  about  that. 
Though  I  paid  no  attention  to  it  at  the  time,  I  kept  it, 
and  it  reads  obviously  enough.  The  appeal  between  the 
lines  fairly  screams  at  you. 

"  Why  don't  you  come  home  ?  Do  you  think  we 
couldn't  give  you  as  good  a  time  as  those  English  lords  ? 
Everybody  says  you'll  marry  one  of  them.  Aren't  we 
good  enough  for  you?  You  ought  to  hear  Mrs.  Bowers 
talk.  It  makes  me  tired,  and  it  would  you.  She's  so 
blamed  envious  of  those  coronets  that  you  are  kicking 
about  —  keeps  lighting  into  Charlie  for  not  having  made 
enough  money  to  buy  Louise  one.  Come  on  home  and 
show  them.  I  keep  telling  them  they're  all  daffy,  that 
you  still  love  the  old  Kentucky  home,  but  they  don't 
believe  it.  Louise  says  you  can't  be  expected  to  care 
any  more." 

Don't  you  see  what  was  happening?  He  was  strug- 
gling for  dear  life  against  the  power  of  the  devil,  and 
besides  this,  he  was,  poor  boy,  in  a  very  awkward  posi- 
tion. He  felt,  in  a  way,  bound  to  me  because  of  that 
interchange  of  kisses  on  the  pier,  and  my  image  still 

180 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  181 

floated  before  him  faintly  attractive  and  disturbing.  It 
may  sound  ridiculous  for  me  to  say  that  I  know  he 
wanted,  in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  to  be  true  to  me  and 
wait  for  me,  but  I  know  from  Dick  that  he  had  actually 
taken  passage  on  a  Cunard  liner,  was  on  the  point  of 
coming  across  to  me,  when  he  got  word  of  my  engage- 
ment. You  may  say  that  he  ought  to  have  come  long 
before.  Of  course  he  ought.  He  knows  that,  so  do  I, 
but  Louise  kept  him.  She  had  been  getting  in  some 
deadly  work  on  him,  with  her  mother  behind  her,  mask- 
ing cleverly  enough  her  attack,  behind  that  talk  about 
coronets.  Mrs.  Bowers  never,  I'm  sure,  had  any  wish 
to  make  an  English  match  for  Louise.  She  was,  in  the 
first  place,  too  clever  to  let  her  ambitions  run  away  with 
her.  It  was  quite  clear  to  her  that  Louise  could  never 
make  a  first-class  international  haul;  their  money 
wouldn't  run  to  an  Italian  prince  or  an  English  duke, 
and  a  little  tuppenny  French  count  was  no  use.  Also, 
she  quite  selfishly  and  humanly  wanted  to  keep  Louise  at 
home.  She  wanted  her  to  make  the  best  possible  local 
match,  and  settle  down  round  the  corner.  Jim  was  that 
match.  Harry  Van  Orden  had  died  and  had  left  Jim  a 
very  respectable  pile  of  railway  stock  and  real  estate. 
He  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  richest  young  bachelor 
in  Iroquois,  and  he  was  cutting  a  dash,  with  two  or  three 
motor-cars,  a  yacht  and  a  big  house,  where  he  entertained. 
Mrs.  Bowers  was  American  enough  to  value  earthly  pos- 
sessions very  highly  indeed.  The  actual,  brand-new 
things  that  Jim  possessed,  and  the  other  things  that  he 
would  undoubtedly  give  Louise,  seemed  more  important 
to  this  mother  than  a  moth-eaten  palace  and  an  ancient 
name,  which  one  might  find  by  rummaging  about  in 
Europe.  Mrs.  Bowers's  efficiency  lay  in  the  definite 


i8a  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

limits  of  her  imagination.  Her  ambitions  and  her 
energies  were  concentrated  and  sharply  pointed  to  one 
end:  namely,  to  the  establishing  of  her  daughter  at  the 
tip-top  of  Iroquois  society. 

You  doubtless  think  of  Louise  as  rather  dull  and  not 
at  all  dangerous.  Well,  she  had  been  transformed.  Of 
course,  it  was  a  sham,  but  what  of  that?  She  had  made 
her  debut  that  winter,  and  her  mother  had,  in  her  marvel- 
lous maternal  genius,  achieved  a  miracle.  She  had  made 
Louise  suddenly  appear  to  be  the  most  desirable  and 
priceless  and  unattainable  jewel  in  the  matrimonial 
market.  With  infinite  pain  she  created  a  superstition  and 
cast  a  nimbus  round  Louise,  that  made  her  mysterious 
and  wonderful. 

If  you  place  a  bit  of  glass  in  a  velvet  case,  lock  the 
case  with  a  golden  key  and  keep  it  in  a  shadowy  cabinet, 
only  bringing  it  out  for  display  after  much  persuasion, 
and  with  obvious  nervousness,  you  are  pretty  sure  of 
deceiving  people  into  thinking  it  a  diamond.  Louise  was 
put  in  a  velvet  case,  and  the  case  was  kept  locked,  and 
a  peep  at  her  was  a  great  condescension  on  the  part  of 
the  jailer,  or  the  connoisseur,  whichever  you  choose  to 
call  her  shrewd  little  mother.  Louise,  having  been  sud- 
denly produced  from  Paris,  brand  new,  as  to  clothes, 
manners  and  general  equipment,  was  introduced  to 
Iroquois  with  much  ceremony,  after  which  she  was 
allowed  to  go  to  only  the  most  exclusive  parties,  was 
whisked  away  from  dances  in  the  very  middle  of  the 
fun,  and  was  every  moment  of  the  day  and  night 
chaperoned  sternly  and  jealously  —  yet  not  too  sternly. 
Young  men  were  warned  off,  but  in  the  very  act  of  dis- 
missal would  catch  the  tail  of  an  inviting  glance.  Mrs. 
Bowers  knew  just  how  forbidding  to  be,  and  just  how 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  183 

cordial.  I  have  a  picture  of  Louise  being  waved  dis- 
tractingly  in  the  face  of  the  manhood  of  Iroquois, 
waved  like  a  flag  and  then  suddenly  withdrawn. 

The  secret  of  half-revelation  was  well  understood  by 
Mrs.  Bowers.  Louise's  clothes  were  marvels  of  allure- 
ment. They  were  cut  out  and  slit  up  in  the  most  alarm- 
ing manner,  and  yet  somehow,  in  them,  she  was  taught 
how  to  behave  so  that  the  effect  was  that  of  an  angel 
or  a  very  young  goddess,  decked  out  unknowingly  in 
the  enticing  garments  of  a  demi-mondaine.  Yes,  she 
must  have  looked  quite  like  a  very  modish  angel,  about 
this  time.  Her  stupidity  gave  her  an  air  of  the  most 
charming  innocence,  and  her  very  blue  eyes  were  to  the 
young  men  of  Iroquois,  I've  no  doubt,  like  heaven  itself. 
All  her  energy  was  conserved  for  the  business  of  attract- 
ing, an  occupation  which  she  pursued  with  unfeigned 
enthusiasm.  She  was  kept  in  bed  until  noon  every  day, 
and  there  was  on  her  round  cheeks  the  bloom  of  per- 
fect health.  She  had  no  need  to  fatigue  her  brain, 
because  she  had  been  taught  by  her  mother  exactly  what 
to  think  and  say  and  do,  on  every  occasion.  She  knew 
just  whom  to  snub  and  how  to  do  it,  just  what  books 
to  skim,  and  how  to  discuss  them  gracefully.  So  finished 
was  her  education  that  she  pretended  an  extreme  devo- 
tion to  independence  of  thought  and  sincerity  of  speech ; 
and  the  way  she  energetically  nodded  her  head  and  em- 
phasized the  little  parrot  words  learned  from  her  mother's 
lips  was  most  fetching  in  its  sincerity.  Enthusiasm  was 
her  note,  graceful,  graded  enthusiasm  that  found  expres- 
sion in  dancing  eyes,  laughing  lips,  endless  untired  ges- 
tures, and  little  screams  and  gasps  and  oh's  and  ah's  of 
appreciation  and  delight.  I  repeat,  this  enthusiasm  was 
not  feigned.  It  was  natural,  a  precious  spring,  having 


184  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

its  source  in  perfect  health,  carefully  guarded  by  her 
mother.  To  the  end  of  her  life  Louise  neither  smoked, 
drank  any  kind  of  wine,  or  even  tea  or  coffee.  She 
drank  milk  and  ate  fruit,  and  she  would  have  outlasted 
us  all.  You  only  had  to  look  at  the  bushy  vigour  of  her 
hair.  I  mean  her  cheeks  would  have  been  the  last  to 
wither,  and  her  teeth  the  last  to  decay.  A  perfect 
physique,  no  bad  habits,  and  a  complete  set  of  attitudes, 
supplied  ready-made,  to  save  her  from  the  problems  of 
existence,  these  would  have  kept  her  for  years  just  as 
she  was. 

Of  course,  as  she  did  not  grow  any  older  or  more 
human  in  the  ten  years  of  her  marriage,  she  was  not 
at  the  end  of  them  as  effective  as  she  used  to  be.  The 
airs  and  graces  of  a  debutante  don't  go  down  so  well  in 
a  married  woman  of  thirty,  but  it's  not  difficult  to  see 
how  she  landed  Jim,  she  and  her  mother  together.  Any- 
how, she  did  land  him.  He  was  already,  as  I  say,  strug- 
gling in  the  net  when  he  wrote  me  that  letter,  and  soon 
after  my  wedding  he  took  her  yachting,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  trip  they  were  engaged. 

When  I  say  that  this  letter  was  a  cry  for  help,  I  don't 
mean  that  they  made  him  marry  her  against  his  will,  or 
that  he  wasn't,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  madly  infatuated 
with  her  by  the  time  the  summer  was  over.  He  was. 
I  don't  wish  to  minimize  his  terribly  intense  desire  for 
her;  it's  just  that  that  makes  it  so  pathetic.  You've  no 
idea  how  sensitive  and  vulnerable  he  was.  He  was  a 
hot-headed  idealist,  absurdly  susceptible  to  the  romance 
of  sex.  He  was  incorrigible  and  fatal. 

He  was,  at  the  same  moment,  on  fire  with  hope,  and 
convulsed  with  cynical  merriment,  and  enraged  at  his 
predicament.  He  felt  it  coming,  and  he  was  ashamed. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  185 

He  knew  at  that  crucial  stage  that  he  was  going  to 
plunge  mto  a  lying  heaven,  and  he  knew,  too,  that  some 
day  he  would  come  out  of  it  disillusioned,  and  he  wrote  to 
me  to  save  him.  You  see,  we  are  rather  alike.  I  didn't 
answer.  I  was  taken  up  with  Binky,  and  six  months  later 
Jim  was  lying  awake  at  night  in  a  state  of  dementia, 
because  Louise  had  put  off  accepting  him. 

They  told  me,  Dick  and  Jerry,  that  he  nearly  went 
off  his  head.  She  refused  him  time  after  time,  and  each 
time  he  set  his  teeth  and  went  at  it  again.  He  sent  her 
American  Beauty  roses,  six  feet  high,  every  Sunday,  and 
gave  her  every  kind  of  party,  bought  gold  dishes  for  his 
table  to  tempt  her,  and  fabulously  expensive  ponies  for 
his  stables,  and  his  face  grew  whiter  and  whiter,  and 
his  eyes  darker  and  deeper,  and  his  absurd  curly  mouth 
more  absurd  and  set  with  pain,  until  at  last  —  the  seventh 
time  —  she  gave  in. 

It  is  all  terribly  pathetic  to  me,  and  Louise's  effort 
at  last,  when  it  was  too  late,  not  the  last  pathetic  part 
of  it.  She  didn't  care  for  him  when  she  married  him, 
that  is  certain.  She  merely  gave  way  to  the  terrible 
flattery  of  his  desire,  and  then,  years  after,  when  she 
began  to  see  what  he  thought  of  her,  how  she  had 
destroyed  herself  in  his  eyes,  she  tried  to  make  herself 
over,  and  she  couldn't.  Mrs.  Bowers  had  done  her  work 
too  well.  It  was  impossible  for  Louise  to  throw  off 
the  dead  corpse  that  she  was  encased  in.  It  was  so  im- 
possible that  I  never  even  gave  her  credit  for  trying. 
She  had  reiterated  so  many  lying  times  her  love  of 
sincerity,  that  at  length,  on  that  last  ghastly  occasion  when 
they  were  here,  and  when  she  was  really  in  despair,  I 
couldn't  believe. 

I  have  all  my  life  failed  to  believe  at  the  crucial  mo- 


1 86  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

ment.  I  might  have  saved  them  both  that  night  two 
years  ago  had  I  believed  her,  instead  of  being  put  off 
by  her  disgusting  antics  with  Britton  in  the  drawing- 
room.  I  might  have  saved  us  all  ages  before,  if  I  had 
only  stopped,  on  the  bidding  of  that  exquisite  impulse, 
when  I  got  Jim's  letter,  but  I  didn't.  I  stifled  it  and,  as 
I  say,  turned  to  greet  Binky's  satisfied  countenance.  I 
remember  looking  him  up  and  down  as  he  stood  in  the 
doorway,  and  definitely  giving  in  to  the  attraction  of 
his  wide,  slack  shoulders,  the  delightful  cavity  under 
his  waistcoat,  and  the  poise  of  his  long,  narrow  hips. 
Certainly  I  can't  blame  Jim  for  giving  in  to  Louise's 
charm. 

I  made  up  my  mind,  when  Binky  came  to  me,  to  be 
married  at  once  and  go  out  with  him  to  India,  and  I 
carried  my  point,  though  it  meant  sailing  in  the  mon- 
soon, and  leaving  my  father  to  go  back  to  America  alone. 
I  had  scarce  a  qualm  about  my  father,  and  no  desire 
whatever  to  go  back  to  Iroquois,  and  be  married  in  the 
midst  of  my  family  and  friends. 

I  was  incredibly  happy.  Every  doubt  had  vanished. 
I  forgot  that  I  had  deceived  my  father  about  Binky,  or 
that  Binky  had  ever,  at  the  beginning,  deceived  me. 
Nothing  unpleasant  seemed  to  me  of  any  importance, 
and  all  the  smallest  pleasantries  were  great  and  glorious. 
Everything  had  to  be  done  in  a  fortnight,  trousseau, 
legal  business,  everything.  Jerry  and  Bud  arrived  from 
different  Continents,  and  professed  themselves  satisfied 
with  their  new  brother-in-law ;  but  I  wouldn't  have  cared 
if  they  had  been  disgusted.  Binky  was  certainly  very 
charming  during  those  days.  His  worries,  too,  were  at  an 
end.  Nevermore  would  he  be  hard-up ;  and  so  he  could 
afford  to  be  merry.  Doubtless  a  wave  of  gratitude  toward 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  187 

me,  made  him  think  himself  more  than  a  little  in  love ;  or 
rather,  I  believe  he  really  did  begin  to  care  for  me  then, 
out  of  gratitude.  In  the  short  interval  between  our 
engagement  and  wedding,  he  talked  more  to  me  than 
ever  before,  talked  exultingly  and  happily.  It  was 
agreed  that  he  was  not  to  stop  soldiering,  under  any 
circumstances,  under  any  circumstances  meaning  however 
much  money  my  father  settled  on  us.  He  was  ambitious. 
He  wanted  to  get  to  the  top,  though  just  what  the  top 
was  I  couldn't  make  out.  He  would  fling  about  the 
room  among  the  litter  of  wedding  presents,  throwing  out 
his  remarks  in  that  jerky  way  of  his.  "  You  and  I  can 
do  anything,  my  dear.  Anything.  I've  had  good  luck 
some  ways,  but  awful  bad  luck  in  others.  In  East 
Africa,  that  swine,  my  Colonel  —  he  did  his  best  to  keep 
me  from  getting  a  V.C.  I'll  score  him  off  yet.  In  active 
service  I  can  show  what  I'm  worth.  My  men  like  me  — 
I  don't  say  much  —  but  they  like  me.  Old  Bradford,  he's 
a  good  fella,  he'll  get  me  a  staff  appointment,  if  I  want 
it,  but  I  think  it's  best  to  stick  by  the  regiment  for  a  bit, 
or  get  shifted  home,  in  the  Life  Guards.  We  couldn't 

afford  the  Life  Guards  before,  but  now Would  you 

like  to  come  home,  Kiddy,  dear,  or  stay  in  India?"  He 
would  dive  at  me  from  across  the  room,  kiss  me  and 
fling  off  again.  "  India's  all  very  well  if  there's  a 
chance  of  a  show.  If  we  do  get  any  fighting,  and  I  get 
promotion,  then  we  might  come  home.  What  do  you  say? 
Oh,  my  dear,  you  do  look  sweet ;  you're  the  prettiest  thing 
in  the  world!  I've  got  my  eyes  on  the  very  pony  for 
you  —  and  Ruffles  has  rather  a  decent  hunter  he  wants 
to  sell.  I'm  afraid  you'll  hate  the  monsoon.  I  feel  a 
brute  taking  you  out.  You'll  have  to  go  to  the  hills  — 
Simla  —  for  a  bit.  You  couldn't  stand  it  in  the  plains. 


1 88  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Molly  Tripp'll  take  you  in!  It'll  only  be  for  a  month. 
Then  you'll  come  down  to  me,  unless  we're  ordered  into 
Afghanistan.  The  old  Ameer  can't  keep  order,  you  see. 

Silly   old   beggar "     And   so,   on   and    on,   while   I 

watched  the  play  of  light  on  his  face  —  a  light  so  vivid 
on  a  face  so  beautiful  that  it  tricked  you  easily  enough 
into  believing  these  were  fine  sentiments. 

And  wedding  presents  poured  in,  and  the  machinery  of 
a  wedding  in  English  high  life  whirred  so  dizzily  in  my 
ears,  sped  so  dazzlingly  before  my  eyes,  that  I  had  no 
time  to  doubt,  no  power  to  think.  I  lived  in  a  maze  of 
cardboard  boxes  and  flowers  and  bits  of  silver  and  bits 
of  crystal  and  rare  china  and  jewels  and  clothes  and 
congratulations  and  strange  ingratiating  faces,  red  faces 
and  withered  faces,  sharp,  aristocratic  faces,  and  beefy, 
bloated  faces,  all  with  more  or  less  weighty  names  at- 
tached to  them,  all  creating  a  chorus  of  sights  and 
sounds  and  impressions  that  rose  higher  and  higher  in 
a  crescendo  of  excitement  that  crashed  at  last  into  the 
thin,  small  note  of  the  Bishop's  voice  in  St.  Margaret's 
Church,  Westminster,  telling  me  that  I  was  married. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

MY  delight  in  Binky,  the  rapture  of  that  first 
year  of  marriage,  seems  incredible  to  me  now. 
I  am  almost  ashamed  of  it.  I  was  so  happy 
that  it  made  me  feel  religious.  It's  a  funny  thing  that 
extreme  sensual  pleasure  should  make  me  think  about 
God,  but  it  does.  I  was  young,  and  the  superstitious 
impulse  to  link  up  sensations  to  eternal  truths,  was 
strong  in  me.  Binky  gave  me  delight  of  my  senses, 
therefore  I  thought  him  divine  and  our  union  sublime. 
Because  of  the  taste  of  his  lips,  I  took  the  nobility  of  his 
soul  on  faith.  Heaven  was  in  a  sensation  and  eternity 
in  the  contact  of  bodies.  Our  happiness  was,  I  literally 
believed,  eternal.  And  God,  whom  I  had  hated  and 
denied,  appeared  to  me  again.  When  I  opened  my  arms 
to  my  husband,  my  heart  was  lifted  up  in  prayer.  That's 
a  Biblical  phrase,  but  it  expresses  the  exaltation  that  I 
felt. 

It  is  all  very  curious.  The  process  by  which  girls 
grow  into  women,  and  women  grow  old,  is  very  curious. 
It  is  a  process  of  tearing  to  pieces  and  violently  putting 
together.  My  enjoyment  of  Binky  did  not  begin  with 
the  day  of  our  wedding.  It  took  weeks  of  confusion 
and  horror  and  revulsion.  I  remember  on  the  ship, 
going  out  to  India,  contemplating  suicide ;  I  remember 
being  frantic  with  terror  and  disgust.  Everything 
seemed  dislocated.  Binky  himself  was  two  distinct 

189 


190  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

people,  an  adored  idol  and  an  instrument  of  torture.  I 
was  a  bundle  of  aching  fragments.  It  was  like  being 
torn  limb  from  limb,  and  then  being  put  together  on  an 
entirely  new  plan.  Gradually,  however,  things  did  fit 
together  and  heal  up.  The  romantic  lover  and  the  actual 
husband  became  one,  and  my  soul  and  body  became  one. 
That  is  to  me  the  complete  moment  in  a  woman's  life,  the 
moment  when  dreams  and  reality-  are  reconciled,  when 
the  delights  of  sense  seem  to  hold  an  infinite  spiritual 
meaning.  If  one  could  only  hold  on  to  that!  I  believe 
one  might.  I  believe  some  people  do.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  be  loyal  and  fine  and  true  to  oneself  —  that's 
all.  To  have,  in  the  act  of  sex,  one's  mind  beautifully 
involved,  and  one's  imagination  illumined,  that  is  the 
hope  of  all  romantic  people.  I  refuse  to  admit  that  it 
is  impossible.  For  me  it  was  true  —  until  —  well,  until 
I  found  Binky  out.  Binky  wasn't  what  I  expected  —  I 
was  mistaken,  but  then  I  might  not  have  been.  I  don't 
see  why  people  shouldn't  be  happily  married  if  they'll 
take  the  trouble  to  try.  The  trouble  isn't  with  the  mar- 
riage state,  it's  with  the  people.  It's  just  as  difficult  to 
make  a  happy  marriage  as  a  perfect  aeroplane.  It  takes 
infinite  pains,  perfectly  adjusted  machinery,  but  they  are 
both  beautiful  creations.  There  is  always  in  my  mind  the 
memory  of  my  father  and  mother.  As  for  me,  after  the 
first  weeks  of  adjustment  I  was  very  happy,  and  absorbed 
in  Binky. 

The  rest  of  life  was  meaningless.  I  can  scarcely  re- 
member anything  about  it.  There  was  no  frontier  show 
in  Afghanistan  after  all,  and  I  did  not  go  to  Simla  with 
Molly  Tripp.  By  the  end  of  September  we  were  settled 
in  our  new  bungalow  and  the  usual  Anglo-Indian  life, 
with  its  tennis-parties  and  its  calls,  its  polo  and  dances 


and  dinings  out,  had  begun,  but  I  can  scarcely  remem- 
ber a  single  person  out  of  all  the  cantonment  except 
Molly  Tripp,  whom  I  had  known  before,  and  some  of 
Binky's  fellow-officers.  I  went  among  people  like  a 
somnambulist,  but  the  little  stupid  activities  that  busied 
my  days  held  for  me  a  certain  inverted  pleasure,  their 
dulness  adding  to  the  delicious  taste  of  my  secret  life. 
Sometimes  in  the  mornings  I  went  with  an  orderly  into 
the  bazaar,  where  the  clamour  of  the  crowds,  the  welter 
of  harsh  colour  and  the  pungent  smells  made  a  kind  of 
stimulating  undertone  to  my  happiness.  The  glower  and 
glare  of  bearded  ruffians,  the  stare  of  superb,  filthy 
women,  quickened  my  sense  of  my  own  rich  experience. 
I  was  glad  of  the  desert  and  the  menace  of  danger,  glad 
of  it  all  as  a  panorama  spreading  about  the  small  shelter 
of  Binky's  arms,  but  I  took  no  interest  in  the  native  city 
or  anything  else.  I  was  profoundly  egotistical  in  regard 
to  the  universe. 

It  was  the  unexpected  sight  of  my  husband,  somewhere, 
that  alone  moved  me  out  of  my  dream.  The  geography 
of  the  cantonment,  as  I  remember  it,  is  made  up  of  a 
network  of  places  where  I  had  been  with  him,  had 
come  upon  him  unexpectedly,  or  had  left  him.  There 
are  patches  of  tennis-court  that  were  a  green  table  for  his 
figure,  stretches  of  white  road  down  which  I  used  to 
see  him  riding,  shadowed  doorways  and  festooned 
verandahs  that  framed  his  head  and  shoulders,  parade- 
grounds  that  diminished  him  to  a  galloping  speck;  that 
was  all.  I  have  no  memory  of  the  place  other  than  this, 
and,  likewise,  no  person  dwells  in  my  mind,  except  as  a 
foil  to  him. 

Only  my  bungalow,  and  in  the  bungalow,  particularly 
my  bedroom,  remains  a  memory  vivid,  and  complete  for 


192  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

ever,  in  every  detail.  I  have  only  to  shut  my  eyes  to 
recall  the  exact  line  of  the  whitewashed  wall  cut  by  the 
cretonne  curtains,  the  sagging  surface  of  the  large  white 
iron  bed,  the  chair  on  which  he  flung  the  dressing-gown. 
The  ugly  brown  doors  that  led  off  on  either  side  to  our 
dressing-rooms  were  to  me  emblematic  portals.  Through 
the  right-hand  door  I  used  to  emerge  in  my  dressing- 
gown  and  slip  into  bed.  Through  the  left-hand  door  he 
came  to  me  in  his  striped  pyjamas,  and  through  it  he 
would  vanish  again  in  the  morning  to  bathe,  while  I  lay 
staring  at  its  streaked  face  covered  with  blistered  paint, 
behind  which  I  heard  the  water  splashing.  His  gar- 
ments, his  shaving-soap,  his  uniforms  and  swords  and 
spurs,  the  table  at  which  we  breakfasted,  the  array  of 
bottles  that  held  his  drinks,  the  aroma  of  his  favourite 
drink,  vermouth,  the  dogs  that  climbed  over  him  of  an 
evening  by  the  fire,  the  smell  of  his  stables  where  he 
spent  much  of  his  time  with  his  ponies,  the  warm  light 
from  the  lamp  on  his  desk  that  fell  on  his  ruddy,  knit 
forehead,  the  bugle  call  from  the  barracks  that  woke 
me  in  the  morning  with  a  clear  shock  of  knowledge,  these 
were  to  me  the  only  realities.  The  social  life  of  the 
station,  its  flirtations,  its  jealousies  and  scandals  and 
ambitions,  fled  past  me  in  a  blur,  as  a  landscape  past  the 
windows  of  a  train. 

I  suppose  we  must  have  had  difficulties  during  the 
winter,  I  suppose  Binky  surprised  me  now  and  then  by 
his  philosophy  of  the  expedient,  but  I  did  not  suspect 
that  he  was  going  to  disappoint  me  in  any  fundamental 
way,  until  that  night  when  I  told  him  about  Archie,  who 
was  to  be  his  son,  and  who  at  this  present  moment  is 
doing  circus-tricks  with  his  pony  in  the  south  pasture. 
Any  pastime  that  affords  special  opportunities  for  break- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  193 

ing  one's  neck,  is  as  attractive  to  Archie  as  to  his  father. 
I  can  see  him  from  my  window.  He  is  trying  to  stand 
on  his  hands  on  the  pony's  bare  back.  Now  he  has 
fallen  off.  The  field  is  soft !  He  will  come  in  extremely 
muddy,  with  some  black  and  blue  spots,  and  after  a 
bath,  Ruffles,  who  is  home  on  leave,  will  egg  him  on  to 
greater  exploits.  His  ambition  is  to  play  polo  as  well 
as  Ruffles  —  Ruffles  is  his  idol. 

I  was  very  uncomfortable  before  Archie  was  born,  un- 
comfortable and  lonely.  It  seemed  very  difficult,  some- 
how, to  tell  Binky  what  was  the  matter,  and  as  I  put 
off  telling  him,  I  grew  more  and  more  nervous.  I  must 
have  felt  instinctively  that  he  was  going  to  fail  me,  pos- 
sibly hurt  me.  Nature,  however,  was  interfering  with 
my  pleasure  in  him,  and  finally  I  began  to  feel  so  ill  that 
I  couldn't  bear  him  near  me,  so  I  was  forced  to  tell 
him. 

It  was  a  hot  night,  towards  the  end  of  March.  He 
had  been  to  a  regimental  dinner  in  honour  of  the  Cavalry 
General,  and  came  home  late,  very  happy,  full  of  anecdotes 
and  chuckles.  He  was  evidently  very  much  pleased 
because  the  General  had  singled  him  out. 

"  I've  asked  him  here  tomorrow,  my  dear.  He  wants 
to  see  you  —  sent  his  respects." 

I  was  in  bed,  and  I  sat  up  abruptly.  I  didn't  like  the 
Cavalry  General  at  all,  and  I  said  so. 

"  He's  a  beast !  I  know.  Any  man  that  would  shove 
his  wife  and  five  children  down  into  the  plains  in  the 
hot  weather  just  so  that  she'll  be  driven  mad  with  loneli- 
ness and  amuse  herself,  and  then  divorce  her "  I 

was  mixed  in  my  speech,  but  definite  enough  as  to  my 
meaning.  "  Really,  Binky,  I  can't  see  how  you  can  stick 
up  for  him.  It  was  a  put-up  job,  so  that  he  could  marry 


194  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

again  —  you  know  it.  I  hate  him !  How  could  you 
think  I'd  entertain  him  again?" 

Binky  raised  his  eyebrows,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  lit 
a  cigarette. 

"  You  see,  my  dear,  personal  feeling  has  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  I  admit  he  acted  rather  like  a  swine.  All 
the  same,  as  long  as  I  am  here  he's  got  me  in  the  hollow 
of  his  hand.  You  want  me  to  get  on,  I  s'pose  ?  "  He 
came  across  to  the  bed  and  bent  down  to  kiss  me.  I 
turned  away  my  head.  I  was  feeling  nauseated,  any- 
way, and  my  mind  was  full  of  something  else,  something 
wonderful  and  portentous,  that  made  this  business  utterly 
disgusting. 

Binky  was  slightly  annoyed  at  my  refusing  to  kiss 
him.  He  flung  back  to  his  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 
"  You  don't  mind  bein'  nice  to  a  low-down  beggar,  a 
down  and  outer  that  you  don't  like;  why  do  you  mind 
being  nice  to  some  one  on  top  ?  It's  perverted  snobbery." 
That  was  clever  of  him,  and  I  was  too  tired  to  argue. 
I  flung  myself  back  on  the  pillows. 

"  Oh,  very  well.     I'll  give  him  lunch." 

He  began  to  chuckle.  "  Henry  was  most  amusing  to- 
night. He  was  just  drunk  enough."  I  groaned.  Had 
he  never  talked  like  this  before,  or  had  I  never  heard? 

"  Why  on  earth  did  Molly  ever  marry  Henry  ? "  I 
brought  out. 

"  Because  she  thought  he  was  going  to  get  on." 

"  Why  does  she  stand  it  now  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  see,  she's  no  money ;  she  can't  very  well 
leave  him,  poor  old  dear !  " 

"  She  ought  to  leave  him.  It's  horrible  the  way  he 
insults  her.  She  ought  to  leave  him  for  the  good  of  her 
own  soul." 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  195 

At  this  he  burst  out  laughing.  He  dashed  at  me  with 
absurd  caresses.  "  My  funny  kiddy !  You  do  say  the 
strangest  things!  The  first  thing  you  know  you'll  be 
leaving  me  for  the  good  of  your  soul."  He  was  highly 
amused,  and  his  laughing  kisses  nearly  strangled  me. 
Finally  he  disappeared  into  his  dressing-room  and  I  lay 
quaking  in  a  panic.  For  one  moment  I  imagined  he 
might  be  angry  when  he  heard.  He  might  even  hit  me ; 
and  then  I  laughed  miserably  at  my  own  hysteria.  He 
came  out  still  laughing  and  something  in  his  laugh  told 
me  what  was  to  follow  and  I  realized  that  he  had  been 
drinking  more  than  usual.  For  the  first  time  his  drink- 
ing and  his  amorous  moods  seemed  connected.  I  felt 
unusually  ill  and  wanted  to  escape  his  embrace.  Of  a 
sudden  there  was  something  commonplace,  even  sinister 
in  his  masculinity.  He  blew  out  the  light,  nestled  beside 
me,  his  breath  hot  and  fast. 

Quickly  in  a  panic  I  spoke.     "  I  feel  ill,  sick !  " 

"  Good  Lord,  do  you  ?  "  He  lifted  himself  on  an  elbow. 
"  What's  the  matter,  my  poor  kiddy  ?  " 

"  I've  been  feeling  sick  for  some  time." 

"  Dash  it !  It  must  be  the  hot  weather.  You'll  have 
to  be  going  to  the  hills."  He  leaned  over  me  again. 
Again  I  cut  him  short. 

"  No,  it's  not  the  weather."  I  nearly  choked.  It  was, 
after  all,  a  terrible  and  beautiful  thing  I  had  to  tell  him. 
I  put  an  arm  around  his  neck  and  drew  his  head  close. 
"I  —  I  —  I'm  going  to  have  a  baby,"  I  whispered,  then 
waited.  I  had  thought  he  might  take  me  swiftly,  pro- 
tectingly  in  his  arms,  or  he  might  be  angry,  or  might 
cower,  frightened,  like  myself,  before  the  unspeakable 
mystery,  but  I  heard  from  his  lips  a  low  whistle.  That 
was  all,  a  long  outlet  of  breath,  just  such  an  expression 


196  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

of  amazement  as  a  small  boy  gives  vent  to  at  the  an- 
nouncement that  somebody  else's  dog  has  been  killed, 
or  something  of  that  kind.  There  was  a  silence. 

"  So  I've  given  you  a  little  son,  have  I  ?  "  His  voice 
was  quite  natural,  tinged  with  the  affectionate  and 
frivolous  raillery  he  often  used.  "  I  hope  the  little  beg- 
gar doesn't  kick  up  much  of  a  shindy  yet  awhile."  I 
could  scarcely  believe  my  ears. 

"  Binky,  don't  you  care  ?  "  My  consternation  missed 
him,  but  the  pain  in  my  voice  enlisted  his  sympathy. 

"Of  course  I  care,  my  dear ;  how  can  you  think  I 
don't?  Poor  little  kiddy!  Do  you  feel  rottenly?  I'm 
so  sorry.  You'll  have  to  go  to  the  hills  right  away." 
He  caressed  me  kindly,  kissed  my  eyes,  turned  over  and 
presently  went  to  sleep. 

I  told  myself  later  that  this  was  the  right  attitude, 
that  I  was  sentimental  and  absurd,  that,  after  all,  having 
a  baby  was  just  having  a  baby,  a  thing  that  happened 
to  everybody  every  day  of  the  year.  But  argue  as  I 
would,  I  knew  he  had  failed  me  in  one  of  the  crucial 
moments  of  my  life. 

I  went  to  Simla,  and  he  joined  me  three  months  later. 
In  those  three  months  I  had  travelled  a  long  way  on 
that  strange  and  weary  road  of  dread,  hope,  and  precious 
discomfort,  and  when  he  came  I  felt  nervous  lest  he  be 
embarrassed  by  my  changed  appearance.  I  had  pre- 
pared myself  for  that  shock,  but  he  seemed  not  to  notice 
or  to  mind.  I  had  never  dreamed  that  his  philosophy 
of  life  was  so  complete.  He  succeeded  quite  as  easily 
in  staring  this  fact  out  of  existence  as  any  other.  We 
never  alluded  to  it.  He  was  kind  and  courteous,  and 
the  month  he  spent  with  me  was  a  sufficiency  successful, 
mutual  pretence  that  nothing  was  strange  about  me, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  197 

nothing  different  between  us.  He  was  tired,  and  spent 
much  of  his  time  sleeping,  lazing,  or  playing  bridge.  He 
didn't  seem  to  want  to  go  out  without  me,  and  I  was 
actually  grateful  for  that.  Altogether  he  really  behaved 
very  well,  but  I  perceived  that  the  whole  of  this  sublime 
adventure  of  mine  must  be  my  own.  He  would  never 
understand  anything  about  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  month  he  went  away,  and  I  stifled 
the  last  desperate  impulse  to  throw  myself  into  his  arms, 
and  demand  of  him  something  that  he  was  withholding 
from  me.  He  did  not  like  scenes ;  he  admired  self-con- 
trol ;  he  believed  in  the  denying  of  all  emotional  meaning. 
I  knew  this  and  said  good-bye  quite  casually,  and  stood 
up  in  my  rickshaw  at  the  top  of  the  Kud,  watching 
him  descend.  At  a  turning,  he  lifted  his  fine  head, 
waved  me  a  kiss  and  left  me  alone,  no  one  knows  how 
alone. 

Archie  was  born  in  October.  Binky  wasn't  there, 
of  course.  I  remember  when  it  was  all  over,  and  I  lay 
in  bed  with  that  little  soft  person  in  my  arms,  trembling 
with  a  curious  new  joy,  that  I  was  afraid  of  the  thought 
of  Binky.  I  was  afraid  of  his  coming;  afraid  that  he 
would  hurt  me  in  my  weakness.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
if  he  saw  me  with  the  baby  in  my  arms  and  that  strange 
softness  showing  in  my  face,  he  wouldn't  understand. 
He  might  make  fun  of  my  yearning  over  my  child,  or 
he  might  never  notice  it  at  all.  I  decided  that  it  would 
be  better  if  he  didn't  notice  it,  if  he  never  had  a  chance 
to  see  it.  I  dreaded  being  exposed,  in  my  new  mother- 
hood, to  his  gaze,  and  so  I  sent  word  to  him  that  I  was 
all  right  and  that  he  was  not  to  bother  about  coming  up 
to  Simla.  I  should  not  have  kept  him  away,  I  suppose. 
If  I  had  dared  then  to  show  him  what  I  felt,  it  would 


198  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

have  been  better  for  us  both.  I  know  so  well  now  that 
his  casual  manner  was  just  a  disguise  dictated  by  his 
taste.  He  was  more  shy  of  mystery  than  I,  and  he  hid 
from  it.  I  might  have  seen,  if  I  had  let  him  come  then, 
but  I  didn't,  and  I  imagined  that  all  the  business  of 
maternity  was  unpleasant  to  him.  I  kept  Archie  to  my- 
self for  six  weeks,  jealously,  frantically  loving  him,  and 
ashamed  of  the  fierceness  of  my  feeling  for  him,  and  in 
two  months  I  was  back  again,  sharing  Binky's  bed,  and 
denying  to  myself  that  anything  disastrous  had  happened, 
but  believing  it  all  the  same.  I  kept  Archie  out  of  his 
way,  and  he  seemed  to  take  this  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Occasionally  he  looked  at  him  in  his  pram,  poked  a 
finger  into  his  stomach  and  called  him  a  "  funny  little 
tomato,"  but  for  the  most  part,  he  paid  him  no  atten- 
tion. What  I  wanted  him  to  do,  I  don't  quite  know.  I 
remember  once  coming  home  to  find  him  wheeling  the 
pram  round  the  garden,  and  I  was  pleased  until  he 
began  to  curse  the  ayah,  .whom  he  had  found  with  a 
cigarette,  and  had  hurled  out  of  the  verandah  by  the  scruff 
of  the  neck.  I  suppose  I  wanted  him  to  be  poetic  about 
babies  in  general,  and  mine  in  particular,  and  he  wasn't. 
He  took  it  all  as  a  matter  of  course,-  and  instead  of 
letting  me  see  that  motherhood  had  made  me  more 
wonderful  in  his  eyes,  he  was  merely  pleased  that  it 
hadn't  altered  my  figure. 

Early  the  next  spring  the  regiment  was  transferred  and 
we  came  home,  and  just  fourteen  months  after  Archie's 
birth,  Humphry  was  born.  I  knew  this  time  just  what 
to  expect.  We  took  a  house  in  Queen  Anne's  Gate. 
It  was  a  narrow  house  with  the  nurseries  at  the  top,  and 
I  got  into  the  habit  of  going  up  to  them,  as  it  were, 
secretly.  Something  in  the  manner  of  our  relations  con- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  199 

firmed  me  in  my  feeling  that  it  wasn't  considered  good 
form  to  show  oneself  a  passionate  mother.  Clem  and 
Monica  pitied  me,  and  condoled  with  me  on  the  nuisance 
of  having  Humphry,  and  professed  an  extravagant  ad- 
miration for  my  courage  when  I  said  mildly  that  I 
didn't  mind.  They  turned  up  gracefully,  however,  for 
the  christening,  seeming  to  take  quite  seriously  all  the 
elaborate  fuss  of  godfathers  and  godmothers,  and  the 
formal  ceremony  that  so  tormented  my  poor  little  atom. 
He  screamed  all  through  it,  and  I  was  in  an  agony  of 
nerves,  and  Binky  was  annoyed.  It  was  dreadful  to 
me  that  Binky  should  be  annoyed  by  Humphry's  crying. 
I  was  furious  with  them  all.  I  wanted  to  grab  him  from 
the  nurse  and  run  away  with  him,  and  have  him  all  to 
myself,  but  the  nurse  carried  him  severely  out  to  the 
motor,  and  I  was  made  to  feel  that  this  was  not  my 
affair  at  all. 

One  afternoon  Clem  and  Monica  climbed  up  to  the 
nursery,  and  found  me  on  my  back  on  the  floor  with 
Archie  climbing  over  my  stomach  and  Humphry  quite 
naked  in  my  hands,  being  kissed  all  over.  Humpy  was 
only  six  months  old  then.  He  didn't  appreciate  the  look 
on  their  faces,  but  I  did.  I  remember  the  slight,  horri- 
fied quivering  on  Monica's  ear-rings,  and  the  little  cry 
that  she  so  bravely  and  beautifully  turned  from  horror 
into  admiration.  Clem  turned  quite  pale. 

After  that,  even  in  the  nursery  and  behind  closed 
doors,  I  tried  to  discipline  my  hungry  hands  and  lips 
and  yearning  voice.  Only  on  great  occasions,  when 
nurse  was  out  and  Binky  quite  safe  on  duty  at  the  palace, 
did  I  allow  my  sons  the  pleasure  of  their  favourite  lul- 
laby :  "  There  was  an  old  darky  and  his  name  was  Uncle 
Ned." 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

IT  was  one  of  those  extraordinary  coincidences  that 
make  one  look  into  them  superstition  sly,  suspect- 
ing a  special  and  pointed  caprice  of  fate.  I  so 
seldom  walked  through  the  Park.  I  can't  remember  ever 
before  having  sat  down  in  Kensington  Gardens.  The 
sunlight,  the  fluttering  leaves  and  laughing  children  were 
attractive,  certainly ;  but  they  had  never  tempted  me 
before.  It  must  have  been  the  dim  light  and  delicate 
gossip  in  Cadogan  Square  that,  having  set  my  nerves 
on  edge,  made  the  Park  look  inviting.  '  I  was  due  at 
various  "  At  Homes,"  but  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  might 
come  on  my  own  children  with  their  attendant  nurses. 
I  had,  at  the  sight  of  the  balloon  woman  by  the  gate,  a 
sudden  intense  desire  to  see  them,  and  I  left  the  car 
and  walked  in.  It  was  not  yet  four  o'clock.  I  could 
skip  my  dressmaker,  and  get  to  the  American  Embassy 
in  plenty  of  time  to  pour  out  tea. 

I  had  been  lunching  with  Clem  and  Monica.  That  in 
some  measure  accounted  for  my  mood.  They  were  be- 
ginning to  weary  me  dreadfully.  And  their  extrava- 
gant regard  for  myself  was  the  most  trying  part  of  it  all. 
I  saw  myself,  as  I  appeared  to  them,  as  fascinating  as  a 
wild  she-elephant.  They  delighted  in  me  as  they  de- 
lighted in  all  freaks  of  nature.  I  was  their  prize  curiosity, 
their  blue-ribbon  sensation.  This  had  come  to  me  gradu- 
ally, after  I  had  groped  blindly  toward  a  warming,  prosaic 

200 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  201 

affection,  and  had  been  repeatedly  chilled  by  the  draught 
of  their  surprise.  What  surprised  them  most  was  my 
liking  for  my  husband.  They  constantly  expected  me  to 
repudiate  him,  or  rather  to  repudiate  what  he  stood  for; 
marriage,  conjugality,  the  social  law.  Having  benefited 
no  end  by  my  arrival  on  the  horizon,  having  allowed  me 
to  become  the  mascot  of  the  family,  they  now  tempted 
me  to  avenge  myself  by  laughing  at  him  and  them. 
They  wanted  the  fun  of  seeing  me  turn  on  them  all.  In 
regard  to  Binky,  they  intimated  that  a  person  so  capri- 
cious as  myself,  could  not  be  expected  to  subsist  on  such 
monotonous  diet  as  Binky  served  up  to  me.  The  idea 
of  wifely  fidelity  was  to  them  a  quaint  idea,  a  curiously 
musty,  dusty  idea,  and  that  I  should  be  true  to  Binky 
in  thought  as  well  as  in  deed,  was  bewildering.  They 
could  not  reconcile  such  vulgarity  with  such  tempera- 
ment. They  were,  of  course,  possessed  with  the  idea 
of  my  having  a  temperament.  Any  one  who  looked,  and 
sang  and  danced  as  I  did,  must  have  a  temperament. 
You  see,  they  were  hoodwinked  by  that  American  joke 
I  spoke  of,  in  the  very  beginning  of  this  book,  the  joke 
of  my  looks. 

They  not  only  depressed  me,  but  they  intimidated  me. 
So  consistent  were  they,  so  complete,  that  I  could  find 
in  their  artificial  universe  not  a  crack  large  enough  to 
receive  the  wedge  of  disbelief  or  scorn.  I  was  forced 
to  admire  and  to  admit  a  reality  that  I  longed  to  expose 
as  a  fake. 

At  luncheon  they  had  been  in  great  form.1  Their 
spirit  of  rare  and  perverse  enjoyment  gave  them  the 
advantage  over  my  less  beautiful  mood.  I  ate  lunch 
savagely  in  silence,  while  they  talked  about  Joseph.  That 
was  the  first  time,  strangely  enough,  that  I  heard  of 


202  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Joseph.  He  had,  it  seemed,  recited  some  of  his  poems 
at  somebody's  house  the  day  before,  and  they  were  wild 
about  him.  I  gathered  that  the  poems  were  about  dead 
white  moths  laying  eggs,  and  green  caterpillars  crawling 
on  decayed  leaves.  Monica  was  quite  sure  that  he  was 
ushering  in  a  new  art,  a  new  school  of  poetry.  She 
called  him  an  Imagist  or  Vorticist  or  something.  Clem 
was  a  little  dubious  about  the  poetry,  but  entirely  con- 
vinced about  his  personality.  It  was  a  shy,  fierce  person- 
ality, very  disturbing.  Indeed,  one  might  say  that  it 
was  the  only  personality  in  London.  They  were  going 
to  take  him  up.  Between  the  roast  mutton  and  the 
rice-pudding,  I  was  given  a  mental  picture  of  the  young 
man,  his  ferocious  looks,  his  shy,  wild  eyes,  his  delicately 
hooked  nose.  He  was  not  particularly  clean,  but  his 
fingers  were  very  nice  and  long.  He  recited  the  poem 
about  the  dead  white  moth  laying  eggs,  in  monotone,  a 
jerky,  fierce  monotone. 

I  sniffed  while  eating  rice-pudding.  I  didn't  believe 
in  the  young  man's  genius.  I  didn't  like  his  uncleanli- 
ness  or  his  dead  moths,  or  Aunt  Cora's  rice-pudding. 
Aunt  Cora  always  gave  one  roast  leg  of  mutton  and  milk 
pudding  for  lunch.  I  suspect  very  plain  food  was  her 
protest  against  her  daughters'  conversation.  I  remem- 
ber Clem  with  a  largish  plate  of  stewed  prunes  and  rice 
in  front  of  her,  telling  me  that  the  dead  white  moth  and 
its  eggs  was  a  new  and  wholly  excellent  image  of  the 
procreating  universe.  Clem's  face  was  as  smooth  and 
fair  as  a  Botticelli  Madonna.  Her  eyes,  in  their  shallow 
setting,  were  rather  Japanese.  She  had  on,  for  a  dress, 
a  piece  of  very  old  moth-eaten  Persian  embroidery.  I 
remember  feeling  extremely  lonely  and  opulent.  I  was 
both  too  well-dressed  and  too  hungry  to  take  an  intelli- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  203 

gent  interest  in  Joseph.  When  I  left  them  in  the  meagre 
chintz-covered  morning-room  —  chintz  was  another  of 
Aunt  Cora's  protests  —  the  touch  of  their  pale  lips  made 
me  shiver.  Had  I  flung  my  arms  about  either  of  them, 
they  would  surely  have  crumbled  away. 

I  walked  hurriedly  through  the  gardens.  A  sight  of 
my  own  round,  solid  sons  in  their  very  ordinary,  actual 
prams,  would  restore  my  balance,  but  they  were  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  I  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour  searching  for 
their  two  white  caps,  and  then  dropped  into  an  empty 
chair  under  a  wide-spreading  tree.  I  sat  and  gazed  over 
the  soothing  green  of  the  grass.  In  the  distance  sheep 
were  grazing.  A  light  haze  hung  over  the  lake,  rendering 
the  fagade  of  the  far  houses  romantic  and  beautiful. 
My  eyes  dwelt  with  relief  on  the  sheep.  Thank  God, 
there  were  sheep  on  the  earth  who  just  nibbled,  nibbled, 
nibbled,  hundreds  of  them,  all  the  same  absurd,  grubby, 
round,  senseless  things.  I  took  a  penny  from  my  purse 
and  gave  it  to  the  man  who  came  toward  me  with  a 
ticket  in  his  dirty  hand.  I  smiled  at  him.  He  was  thin 
and  unshaven,  with  a  kind,  humorous  eye  and  limp 
moustache;  he  comforted  me,  so  did  the  sheep,  and  I 
sat  happily  watching  him  slouch  away,  while  the  voices 
of  children  playing  near  by  sounded  pleasant  in  my  ears. 
I  wanted  to  have  a  dozen  children !  There  was  no  reason 
why  I  shouldn't  —  I  would  live  with  them  on  a  farm,  I 
meant  in  the  country.  It  occurred  to  me  that  by  the  time 
I  had  a  dozen  children  I  should  probably  be  a  duchess,  and 
mistress  of  Saracens.  The  thought  was  disconcerting. 
My  mental  picture  had  been  of  a  yellow  farm-house, 
something  like  my  grandfather's,  with  chickens  and  pigs 
close  at  hand.  It  again  occurred  to  me  that  Binky  didn't 
quite  fit  into  a  yellow  farm-house. 


204  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

My  reverie  was  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  a  woman's 
voice.  It  was  a  clear,  metallic  voice,  unmistakable. 
Claire  Hobbes  was  walking  toward  me  at  an  averted 
angle.  She  had  with  her  a  boy  of  seven  or  eight,  dressed 
in  an  Eton  jacket.  My  eyes  were  suddenly  riveted  on 
the  boy.  A  strange  feeling  of  recognition,  mingled  with 
curiosity  and  terror,  pulled  me  out  of  my  chair. 

I  had  not  seen  Mrs.  Hobbes  since  that  first  visit  on  the 
Indian  frontier.  She  had  disappeared  so  completely  that 
I  had  almost  forgotten  her  existence.  Molly  Tripp  had 
said  something  about  her  having  taken  a  flat  in  Regent's 
Park. 

I  advanced  and  held  out  my  hand.  She  swerved  to- 
ward me,  and  a  very  successful  smile  touched  her  hard 
face,  that  looked  more  like  a  shark's  than  ever.  I  think 
she  was  in  grey  broadcloth  with  a  close,  stiff  hat,  but  I'm 
not  sure,  my  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  boy.  I  said,  "  How 
do  you  do  ?  "  holding  out  my  hand  to  him  in  turn.  He 
shook  it  loosely,  dropped  it,  and  thrust  both  his  into  his 
pockets  with  an  abrupt  movement.  He  had  his  hat  under 
his  arm.  His  eyes  were  greenish-grey,  and  his  face  wore 
a  brilliant,  shy  smile,  an  apologetic  friendly  beam.  He 
shifted  his  feet  awkwardly.  I  was  conscious  of  an  acute 
throbbing  pain  in  my  heart. 

"  My  son,"  said  Mrs.  Hobbes,  and  her  face  never 
quivered.  "  He's  just  down  for  a  few  days.  Isn't  it  a 
divine  day?  So  glad  to  have  met  you.  Remember  me 
to  your  husband."  She  dismissed  me  with  -perfect  ease, 
and  the  boy,  with  a  charming  lop-sided  bow,  moved  off 
beside  her.  I  went  on  ahead,  automatically,  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  At  the  iron  railings  of  the  walk,  how- 
ever, I  turned.  Through  the  sunny  vista  of  the  grass  and 
tree-trunks  and  branches,  I  watched  the  two  figures,  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  20$ 

woman's  tall,  stiff,  severely  tailored,  the  boy's  limber  and 
lackadaisical.  He  was  walking  in  a  zigzag  and  looking 
down.  The  slouching  movement,  the  set  of  his  slender 
little  shoulders,  was  unmistakable.  I  hurried  back  to 
Alexandra  Gate,  almost  running.  I  had  a  sensation  of 
wanting  to  put  my  hands  over  my  eyes  and  ears. 

On  the  way  home  I  kept  repeating  to  myself  the  ques- 
tion :  Why  had  Binky  never  told  me  he  had  a  child  by 
that  woman? 

My  husband,  I  was  told  by  the  footman,  had  not  yet 
come  in.  I  remembered  that  he  had  gone  with  Ruffles 
and  some  others  to  Newmarket.  It  was  essential,  some- 
how, for  me  to  see  him  at  once.  I  had  a  furious  craving 
to  talk  it  all  out,  to  get  it  all  clear,  but  I  had  to  wait 
three  hours.  We  were  dining  at  home  and  going  out 
later  in  the  evening.  I  changed  into  a  tea-gown  and  sat 
down  by  my  bedroom  window  and  stared  blindly  out 
into  St.  James's  Park. 

In  my  crazy  jealousy  I  thought  that  I  had  at  least 
discovered  one  important  thing.  This  boy  explained 
Binky's  indifference  to  my  children.  Doubtless  his  first 
child,  the  fruit  of  a  passionate  and  illicit  adventure, 
meant  far  more  to  him  than  his  legitimate  sons.  I  had 
visions  of  him  visiting  the  child  unknown  to  me,  all 
through  the  four  years  of  our  marriage.  I  thought  of 
Binky  as  planning  for  his  future,  of  suffering  silently 
through  the  inevitable  separation.  With  a  horrid  clarity, 
I  saw  that  he  was  a  dear  little  fellow.  I  elaborated  in 
self -mortifying  thought  upon  his  good  looks  and  his 
probably  delightful  qualities.  I  told  myself  that  I  was 
an  interloper.  I  was  in  an  absurd  state  of  mind.  What 
right  had  I  to  marry  Binky  and  come  between  him  and 
these  two  human  beings  to  whom  he  belonged  ?  I  would 


2o6  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

stand  between  them  no  longer  —  I  would  take  my  own 
unfortunate  babies  to  America.  But  then,  what?  What 
of  Colonel  Hobbes?  He  existed.  He  would  always  exist. 
And  what  in  heaven  was  his  attitude  toward  his  wife's 
child?  It  was  too  much  for  me.  I  was  in  a  white  heat 
of  anger  and  bewilderment,  and  humiliation,  when  Binky 
came  in.  I  was  so  utterly  wretched  that  I  gave  no  sign 
at  all. 

He  had  had  a  good  day,  luck  all  round,  had  backed 
three  winners.  He  was  tired  and  dusty  and  happy. 

"  Dining  alone  ?  Good  —  I'm  dead  beat."  He  flung 
himself  into  a  chair,  his  legs  thrust  far  out,  his  head 
thrown  back.  "  Jove,  Mayf air  was  there !  "  He  began 
to  chuckle.  "  Some  one  came  up  to  him  —  you  know 
Constance  had  a  daughter  this  morning.  Well,  some  one 
came  up  to  the  duke  and  congratulated  him.  Mayfair 
just  cocked  an  eye.  'Why  d'you  congratulate  me?'  ses 
he.  '  It's  not  my  child.'  Just  like  that.  Awfully  droll 
chap,  Mayfair ! "  Binky  beamed,  caught  my  look. 
"  There,  I'm  sorry.  I  shouldn't  have  told  you.  I  know 
you  don't  like  our  manners.  Forgive  me.  My  dear,  you 
do  look  ripping  in  that  blue."  His  face  expressed  con- 
trition, pleading. 

"  I  met  Mrs.  Hobbes  in  the  Park,  just  now."  His  face 
grew  blank. 

"Did  you?" 

"  She  was  with  her  son."  I  felt  that  I  was  being 
unpardonably  stupid,  but  I  couldn't  help  it.  He  got  up 
suddenly;  gave  himself  a  fling. 

"  Well,  my  dear,  I  really  must  have  a  wash  before 
dinner.  You'll  excuse  me  —  I  won't  be  long."  He  was 
off,  almost  at  the  door.  He  was  running  away.  He  was 
a  coward,  I  thought  wildly. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  207 

"  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?  "  My  voice  arrested  and 
exasperated  him. 

"Tell  you  what,  my  dear?"  He  took  a  pettish  tone, 
which  at  that  moment  offended  me  particularly. 

"  Tell  me  that  you  had  a  son." 

"  Oh !  "  He  came  back,  limp,  astonished.  He  stood 
looking  at  me  stupidly.  His  mouth  worked.  He  half 
smiled,  was  at  a  loss,  then  suddenly  pulled  himself 
together. 

"  Well  —  really,  I  don't  know.  Why  should  I  have 
told  you  ?  "  Then  more  lucidly :  "  After  all,  it  was  her 
affair."  I  admitted  the  truth  of  this.  "  How  in  the 
world  did  you  find  out?" 

"I  saw." 

"  Good  Lord!     You  did?     How  very  awkward!" 

"What?"     I  was  terrified  of  what  was  coming. 

"  Awkward,  if  he  looks  as  much  like  me  at  that.  You 
must  admit  it's  awkward."  I  was  appalled. 

"  How  long,  then,  is  it  since  you've  seen  him  ? "  I 
held  my  breath. 

"How  long?     I  dunno  quite." 

"  Try  to  remember."  He  missed  the  sarcasm  in  my 
voice. 

"  Let  me  see  —  six  years.     He  was  two." 

I  screamed.  "  You  haven't  seen  him  for  six  years  ?  " 
And  the  loudness  of  my  voice  shocked  me.  I  blushed 
crimson  as  he  instinctively  hushed  me  with  a  raised  hand, 
a  sounded  "  Ssh !  "  and  a  glance  at  the  door.  I  repeated 
my  question  in  a  low  tone.  "  You  haven't  seen  him  for 
six  years  ?  " 

"  No  —  I  don't  think  so.  He  was  at  home,  you  see, 
with  her  people."  I  waited  —  and  so  obviously  with 
bated  breath  that  he  went  on  irritably  under  my  wide 


208  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

gaze.  "  I  s'pose  you  think  it  blackguardly  of  me  to  let 
her  have  a  child!  God  knows  we  didn't  want  it,  did 
our  best  to  avoid  it.  She  used  to  go  over  the  highest 
jumps  —  did  all  sorts  of  things."  He  looked  suddenly 
very  young  and  innocent.  I  burst  out  laughing,  and 
went  on  laughing,  hysterically.  He  looked  injured. 
"Well,  what  else  could  we  do?"  He  left  it  to  me, 
helplessly.  My  laughter  stopped  as  suddenly  as  it 
began. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  was  all  I  could  say. 

"  How  d'you  mean,  don't  understand  me  ?  " 

After  a  pause  I  brought  out  the  real  question. 

"  Didn't  you  want  to  see  him,  ever  ?  " 

"No.     Why  should  I?" 

I  caught  my  breath.  "  Didn't  you  feel  he  was  your 
own?  Didn't  you  want  to  know  how  he  was  getting 
on?" 

"  Oh,  Claire  used  to  tell  me.  You  see,  my  dear, 
he  —  well,  why  should  I?  I  knew  he  was  awfully  well 
cared  for.  'Tisn't  as  though  he  were  going  to  be  poor." 
He  sighed  as  though  he  had  exhausted  the  subject,  and 
this  time,  when  he  turned  away,  I  let  him  go.  It  was 
so  much  worse  than  I  expected.  I  couldn't  grasp  it. 
Not  a  feeling  stirred  me,  save  bewilderment.  Not  for 
days  did  I  deduce  any  meaning  or  come  to  any  conclusion. 
Indeed,  I  was  never  lucid  about  it,  but  shortly  after 
this  I  began  to  feel  that  there  was  something  indecent 
in  marriage.  I  admitted  him  less  and  less  frequently 
to  my  room,  until  one  night  I  lay  in  his  arms  as  cold  as 
ice,  the  shivering  victim  of  a  mental  disgust.  The  next 
night  I  locked  my  door,  and  as  he  did  not  come,  I  kept 
on  locking  it,  until  at  length  the  moment  came  when  I 
heard  him  try  the  lock,  and  again  try  it,  and  then  go 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  209 

away.  I  lay  trembling  and  listening.  I  felt  so  sorry 
and  so  ashamed  for  him  that  I  nearly  rushed  to  call 
him  back  —  but  something  stronger  than  pity  kept  me 
still. 

He  never  alluded  to  the  episode,  but  a  month  later 
he  asked  me  somewhat  confusedly,  in  a  roundabout  way, 
what  I  meant  by  my  retirement. 

"Nothing — I  just  want  to  be  alone." 

"  But  I  don't  quite  see.     Are  you  angry?" 

"  No." 

He  hesitated,  started  to  speak,  checked  himself,  and 
at  last  came  out  with  it. 

"  Have  you  a  lover?  " 

"  No."     My  coolness  astonished  me. 

"  For  God's  sake,  then,  what  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  Nothing.  I  don't  want  to  —  to  live  like  that  any 
more." 

"Why  not?" 

"  It's  impure." 

"  Good  Lord !  A  man  and  his  wife  —  you  —  you 
amaze  me !  What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  It's  indecent  to  me  because  I  don't  feel  the  way 
I  used  to."  My  throat  ached  terribly.  I  felt  my  lip 
twisting. 

He  flushed  very  red,  and  shouted  at  me :  "  Indecent ! 
Good  Lord  !  Indecent !  How  can  it  be  indecent  ?  What 
do  you  mean?  We're  married.  Where's  the  inde- 
cency ? "  It  was  too  much  for  him.  He  could  only 
gasp.  "  You  are  the  queerest  —  the  words  you  use  — 
whoever  heard  of  a  woman  calling  it  indecent  to  love 
her  husband.  If  you  loved  some  one  else  I  could  under- 
stand. It  isn't  even  as  if  we'd  got  bored  with  each 
other.  We've  only  been  married  four  years.  What  does 


210  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

it  mean  ?  "  He  made  hopeless  gestures  with  his  hands, 
strode  about  wildly,  knocked  something  over.  He  was 
futile  and  ridiculous.  Suddenly  I  burst  into  violent  tears 
and  ran  out  of  the  room,  up  the  stairs,  into  the  nursery, 
and  buried  my  head  in  little  Humpy's  woollen  blankets. 
The  nurse  was  greatly  shocked  at  this. 


PART   THREE 


CHAPTER  ONE 

IROQUOIS  was  very  amusing  over  its  new  Grand 
Opera.  Up  to  the  year  nineteen  nine  it  had  been 
content  with  a  month's  visit  from  the  New  York 
Metropolitan  Opera,  but  in  nineteen  five  old  J.  J. 
Jameson's  daughter  married  Jim  Armstrong  and  came 
to  live  on  Jefferson  Drive,  and  in  five  years,  with  her  aid, 
Iroquois  had  achieved  one  of  its  dearest  ambitions,  its 
very  own  Grand  Opera.  The  city  very  nearly  burst  with 
pride,  and  it  did  the  strangest  things  in  the  effort  to 
carry  it  off,  and  subsequently  it  nearly  strangled  to  death, 
the  Puritan  part  of  it,  over  the  Russian  ballet.  But  it 
was  happy  through  all  these  uncomfortable  phases,  as 
happy  as  any  young  country  girl  in  a  very  much  too 
expensive  and  too  modish  new  frock.  You  can  imagine 
a  very  innocent  and  rather  vain  farmer's  daughter  putting 
on  a  Paris  frock  for  the  first  time,  a  Paris  frock  which 
she  had  paid  for  herself  out  of  the  money  she  made 
in  new-laid  eggs.  That's  the  sort  of  way  that  Iroquois 
behaved.  Maybe  I  exaggerate  a  little,  not  much.  Of 
course,  when  I  talk  of  Iroquois  in  this  connection  I  refer 
particularly  to  the  smart  set,  not  to  the  great  German 
community  who  filled  the  gallery  and  stalls  and  made 
opera  pay,  but  to  those  satellites  of  Mrs.  Armstrong  who 
took  boxes  for  the  season  rather  than  incur  her  dis- 
pleasure, and  in  the  smart  set  I  refer  particularly  to  the 
women,  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  with  her  friends,  and 
Louise  with  her  younger  friends.  These  constituted 

213 


214  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

society,  and  these  undertook  to  establish  the  legend  that 
Iroquois  was  one  of  the  world's  centres  of  culture,  and 
fashion. 

I  must  separate  the  women  from  the  men,  because 
the  men  insisted,  by  the  brutality  of  their  cynicism,  in 
being  separate.  While  the  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers'  set 
adored  the  opera,  and  the  Louise  Bowers  Van  Orden  set 
adored  it  extravagantly,  their  husbands,  consenting  to 
pay,  reserved  the  right  to  grumble  and  growl  and  sneer 
at  the  whole  show.  Iroquois  was,  of  course,  the  finest 
town  on  earth;  look  at  its  railway-station  and  factory 
chimneys,  its  stockyards  and  its  office  buildings.  Why 
the  dickens  did  it  have  to  go  in  for  an  Opera!  Music 
was  a  bore,  and  they  refused  to  be  tortured.  They  would 
pay,  certainly,  because  they  could  afford  to  pay,  and 
because  they  were  devoted  American  husbands,  and 
because  it  was  a  part  of  the  life-game  to  let  women 
make  fools  of  themselves,  but  they  refused  to  sit  through 
four  hours  of  that  stuff  in  the  boxes  which  cost  them 
each  fifty  dollars  a  night.  They  formed  a  conspiracy 
and  elaborated  a  plan.  Every  blessed  night  they  escorted 
their  wives  to  their  seats,  adjusted  wraps,  proffered  pro- 
grams, made  themselves  agreeable  until  the  overture 
began  and  the  lights  went  down.  Then,  under  the  cover 
of  darkness,  they  disappeared.  A  subterranean  passage 
led  from  the  Opera  House  to  the  Club,  and  to  the  Club 
they  went.  Two  minutes  before  the  end  of  the  act  a 
bell  rang  in  the  Club  bar,  summoning  them  back,  so 
accurately  timed  that  when  the  curtain  descended  and 
the  lights  went  on  again,  there  they  were  in  their  places 
applauding  with  genuine  American  enthusiasm.  During 
the  entfacte  they  were  very  much  in  evidence;  with  the 
beginning  of  Act  II.  they  disappeared  again. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  215 

It  was,  I  believe,  Jim's  idea.  He  is  a  cheeky  philistine ; 
quite  cheeky  enough  to  originate  the  scheme  out  of  an 
agony  of  anticipated  boredom.  You  see,  Young  America 
has  not  yet  consented  to  be  bored. 

And  Louise,  I  would  have  you  know,  was  satisfied. 
She  saw  nothing  shameful  or  absurd  in  her  position. 
She  sat  complacent  and  bejewelled  in  her  half -empty 
box,  and  allowed  Jim  to  spend  his  time  getting  drunk 
in  the  Club ;  and  so  long  as  he  and  the  other  men  whom 
she  had  previously  dined  were  there  in  the  interval  fussing 
over  herself  and  her  female  companions,  she  didn't  mind. 
Louise  can't,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  tell  one  note  from 
another.  She  is  almost  completely  tone-deaf,  but  she 
went  to  the  Opera  three  times  a  week  for  the  three  months 
of  the  winter  that  I  was  in  Iroquois,  and  she  consistently 
kept  up  the  most  elaborate,  detailed  fiction  of  her  appre- 
ciative enjoyment.  How  she  picked  up  so  much  par- 
ticularized information  I  can't  imagine.  Her  data  were 
extraordinary.  She  could  rattle  on  about  the  score 
and  the  tone-qualities  of  this  and  that  voice,  and  the 
dramatic  technique  of  another,  and  the  scenic  effects  of 
such  and  such  an  artist,  without  ever  giving  herself  away 
the  slightest  bit.  The  only  suspicious  thing  about  all 
her  talk  was  its  extreme  glibness.  It  came  so  fast  and 
with  such  smoothness.  To  make  it  quite  perfect,  she 
ought  to  have  affected  a  slight  hesitation  as  an  evidence 
of  mental  effort.  It  is  rather  pathetic,  if  you  wish  to 
look  at  it  that  way,  to  think  of  that  stupid  child,  decked 
out  in  her  extraordinary  finery,  turning  a  carefully- 
arranged  face  towards  a  volume  of  meaningless  sound 
and  pretending  to  be  thrilled  to  the  soul ;  while  her  hus- 
band was  getting  drunk  and  more  drunk,  and  learning 
to  despise  her  poor  little  attitudes.  You  see,  Louise  had 


2i 6  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

been  to  Dresden  and  Paris  and  Vienna,  and  she  had 
seen  kings  and  queens  at  the  Opera,  and  women  whose 
faces  she  recognized  from  newspapers  as  great  person- 
ages. The  Opera,  as  it  happened,  was  the  one  place 
where  she  had,  so  to  speak,  sat  down  with,  or  at  least  in 
the  same  room  with,  Royalty,  and  so  the  Opera  —  an 
Opera  —  Grand  Opera  in  general  terms,  seemed  to  her 
quite  naturally  the  aristocratic  thing,  and  the  nearest 
thing  America  could  get  to  Court.  I  fancy  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  her  to  think,  as  she  sat  there  with  a  truly 
regal  chain  of  pearls  round  her  throat,  that  queens  and 
empresses  and  princesses  were  sitting  just  as  she  was 
sitting,  in  boxes  in  Opera  Houses  all  over  the  world.  The 
thought,  undoubtedly,  gave  her  an  exquisite  sense  of 
doing  the  right  thing.  And  she  knew,  as  I  say,  just  how 
to  behave,  just  how  to  sit  rather  stiffly  and  to  applaud 
with  assumed  nonchalance,  and  to  use  her  fan  and  bow 
across  the  arena,  and  talk  to  men  over  the  back  of  her 
chair.  Oh,  yes,  she  knew  perfectly  how  to  behave.  Only 
once  did  I  see  her  at  a  loss.  It  was  during  the  first 
performance,  in  Iroquois,  of  the  Russian  ballet.  Louise 
had  never  seen  the  Russian  ballet.  It  took  her  by 
surprise;  she  had  no  attitude  ready,  and,  poor  child, 
her  little  mind,  for  once  caught  unaware,  exposed  to  a 
naked  fact  of  some  beauty  and  great  strangeness,  recoiled 
instinctively.  All  the  Puritan  instincts  of  her  forefathers 
and  her  grandmothers,  let  loose  for  once,  rushed  to  the 
rescue. 

It  wasn't,  of  course,  the  real  Russian  ballet;  Nijinsky 
wasn't  there,  or  Karsavina,  or  any  of  the  first-class 
people;  but  it  wasn't  bad  at  all,  and  I  enjoyed  it.  I  was 
with  Louise  and  Sally  Comstock,  and  somehow  in  the 
middle  of  it,  I  became  conscious  of  an  acute  discomfort 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  217 

somewhere  round  me  or  near  me,  and  then  gradually 
I  realized  that  it  emanated  from  Louise  and  Sally.  I 
looked  at  them  over  my  shoulder  in  the  half-light.  They 
were  neither  of  them  watching  the  stage,  or  rather,  they 
seemed  to  be  trying  to,  or  trying  not  to,  I  couldn't  tell 
which.  They  were  casting  queer  little  embarrassed 
glances  round  them.  Louise's  expression  was  comic. 
Her  upper  lip  was  pulled  way  down,  her  mouth  pursed 
primly,  while  her  eyes  were  positively  rolling.  She  was 
shocked,  and  Sally  too.  I  observed  this  with  amaze- 
ment. For  a  full  moment  I  couldn't  imagine  what  had 
shocked  them.  It  actually  didn't  occur  to  me  to  connect 
the  scene  on  the  stage  with  their  embarrassment.  You 
see,  they  had  such  a  very  slight  advantage  over  the  , 
dancers  in  the  matter  of  clothes  that  it  was  difficult  to 
see  how  they  could  object  to  the  sight  of  those  rather 
beautiful  bodies  swathed  in  chiffon.  But  still,  there  it 
was.  When  the  ballet  was  over  they  knew  not  what  to 
say.  Louise's  cheeks  were  quite  crimson.  And  when 
Jim  came  forward  announcing  that  he  had  been  watching, 
and  that  "  Gee,  that  dancer  was  a  peach !  "  she  glared 
at  him  like  an  outraged  little  saint.  Truly,  in  her  sudden 
exposure,  with  all  those  trappings  of  manner  stripped 
off,  she  seemed  incredibly  young,  and  Jim  himself,  his 
face  flushed  with  wine,  looker  rather  like  a  drunken 
cherub.  I  felt  a  sudden  pain  at  my  heart  as  I  looked  at 
them,  the  sort  of  pain  a  mother  feels  for  naughty  and 
unhappy  children. 

Louise  tossed  her  head.  "I  don't  like  it."  Jim 
laughed.  "  Oh,  you  don't,  eh  ?  Why  not  ?  I  think  she's 
fine!  I'm  going  to  make  her  acquaintance."  He  was 
deliberately  tormenting  her.  He  was  bragging  absurdly, 
and  he  was  obviously  a  little  —  just  a  little  —  befuddled. 


218  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Louise  was  on  the  point  of  tears,  and  for  once  stared 
blindly  and  unconsciously  into  the  crowded  theatre.  For 
the  moment  she  forgot  absolutely  what  she  was  there  for, 
what  she  had  made  herself  into.  As  a  clever  imitation 
of  a  decadent  she  had  ceased  to  exist.  She  was  just 
a  woman  quaking  with  jealousy  and  outraged  propriety. 
I  suffered  for  her  and  with  her,  and  for  them  both, 
and  at  the  same  time  I  positively  envied  them.  They 
had  the  power  to  torment  each  other,  and  give  each  other 
exquisite  pleasure.  They  had  sufficient  vitality  to 
squabble,  and  sufficient  idealism  to  make  it  up.  They  got 
on  each  other's  nerves  so  dreadfully  that  they  didn't 
care  how  they  behaved  in  public,  and  yet  they  believed 
in  the  romance  and  inviolability  of  their  own  relation- 
ship. I  could  tell  by  the  way  they  glared  at  each  other 
that  there  was  going  to  be  a  scene  when  they  got  home, 
a  blind  scene  of  fury  over  something  they  neither  of 
them  understood.  They  would  fight  over  the  sanctity 
of  their  home  and  the  purity  of  their  marriage  without 
knowing  it,  with  fierce,  instinctive  passion.  Louise  would 
reduce  him  to  the  dusf  by  a  display  of  sheer  fiery  virtue, 
and  he  would  be  ashamed  of  his  lapse,  of  that  look  at 
the  little  dancer's  body.  Probably,  in  the  car  going  home, 
she  would  accuse  him  of  not  loving  her.  She  would 
refuse  to  be  kissed  or  comforted,  and  she  would  wildly 
upbraid  him  for  drinking  too  much,  and  at  length  he 
would  be  frightened  and  humbled  by  her  intensity,  and 
would  take  her  in  his  very  repentant  arms,  promising 
never  to  look  at  an  actress  or  a  dancer,  or  any  woman 
under  the  sun,  but  to  love  only  herself,  for  ever  and 
ever. 

I    felt,   as   I   say,  very  old  and   depraved  and   well- 
mannered,  as  I  watched  them   squabbling  valiantly   in 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  219 

that  box  at  the  Opera ;  and  I  felt  jealous  of  their  youth, 
for  it  seemed  to  me  then  that  they  would  last  out  and 
win  through.  I  didn't  foresee  what  was  going  to  happen, 
for  I  didn't  realize  just  how  stupid  Louise  was.  At 
that  time  Jim  was  still  more  or  less  under  the  sway  of 
her  charm;  and  I  didn't  even  think  of  his  coming  to 
hate  her.  You  understand  he  never  made  love  to  me, 
not  then  or  at  any  time.  He  never  even  played  with 
that  idea.  I  don't  feel  at  all  guilty  toward  Louise.  It 
was  none  of  my  doing.  Even  if  I  had  hated  and  ignored 
her,  I  couldn't  have  done  it.  Something  curious,  an 
image  of  God,  or  a  pillar  of  fire  or  something,  stood 
between  us,  and  to  the  very  end  we  looked  at  each 
other  as  from  a  great  distance,  across  an  impassable  gulf. 
It  wasn't  that  I  felt  I  had  to  be  true  to  Binky.  I 
didn't;  but  I  simply  couldn't  go  in  for  an  intrigue  with 
Jim.  It  was  impossible.  We  both  realized,  I  suppose, 
when  we  began  to  realize  things,  that  nothing  was  any 
good  but  the  perfect  and  the  final  and  the  complete  thing. 
But  all  this  about  the  Opera  probably  seems  to  have 
nothing  in  particular  to  do  with  Binky  and  me  and  our 
affairs.  It  has,  however,  because  it  was  there,  during 
a  performance  of  "  Le  Jongleur  de  Notre  Dame,"  that 
he  saw  Phyllis.  She  was  in  her  box  directly  opposite. 
Her  gown  was  of  turquoise  blue,  cut  very  low,  and  she 
was,  under  all  that  glaring  light,  of  almost  unreal  fair- 
ness. Whereas  the  outlines  of  other  women  were  blurred 
and  their  colour  dimmed,  she  shone  as  though  there  were 
something  peculiar  in  the  texture  of  her  hair  and  skin 
that  made  it  reflect  light,  as  though  she  were  a  creature 
made  in  something  harder  and  smoother  and  more  trans- 
parent than  flesh.  Not  that  her  surface  or  her  outlines 
are  hard,  Nothing  could  be  more  tender  and  seductive 


22O 

than  the  long,  soft  curve  of  her  white  bosom,  or  the 
dimples  in  her  shoulders,  but  her  effect  at  a  distance  was 
of  a  porcelain  smoothness.  Binky  positively  blinked 
when  he  caught  sight  of  her.  "  Who  is  she  ?  "  he  asked. 
"  The  shiny  one  in  pale  blue?  " 

"Oh,  that's  Phyllis  — Mrs.  Patrick  O'Brien.  I've 
told  you  about  her.  Patrick  O'Brien  is  Mayor  of  Iro- 
quois  —  the  youngest  we've  ever  had." 

Binky  made  a  grimace.  Just  what  it  indicated  I  don't 
know.  Perhaps  he  remembered  about  Pat,  the  "  Mick." 
I  had  probably  told  him  the  story.  Pat  had  appeared 
in  the  back  of  the  box,  huge  and  red  and  ill-clothed,  with 
a  bulging  shirt  bosom.  He  loomed  there  behind  her 
like  an  uncomfortable  mountain.  There  were  three 
other  men  in  the  box,  but  no  women.  Among  the  men 
was  Tommy  Dodge,  fatter  than  ever,  but  small  beside 
Pat.  Tommy  was  being  very  attentive.  He  leaned  for- 
ward and  adjusted  a  magnificent  white  fur  wrap  over 
Phil's  shoulders.  How  well  I  understood  the  significance 
of  that  white  fur!  Phil  wriggled  into  it  deliciously, 
tilted  her  brilliant,  golden  head  a  little  and  smiled 
dazzlingly  at  Tommy.  I  could  almost  hear  her  purr. 
She  had  at  last  all  the  soft  fur  wraps  that  her  heart 
could  desire,  and  her  smile  travelled  over  Tommy's  placid, 
devoted  head  to  her  husband,  the  source  of  all  comfort, 
and  included  him  in  its  radiance.  She  beckoned  to  him 
with  one  white  finger,  resting  an  arm  on  the  back  of  her 
chair  and  rubbing  her  chin  gently  along  the  fur.  Her 
husband  came  forward,  bent  down  to  her,  burst  into 
a  roar  of  laughter.  Tommy  and  the  other  men  joined, 
Phyllis  snuggled  into  her  white  nest,  dimpled  and  chat- 
tered, and  made  them  laugh  again. 

J  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  Phyllis,   wherever  she. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  221 

happens  to  be,  gives  the  impression  of  being  almost  too 
attractive  and  amusing.  Not  only  is  she  the  centre  of 
men's  attention,  but  the  attention  they  give  her  is  of  an 
abandoned,  bacchanalian  character.  Men  are  always,  in 
her  vicinity,  more  than  usually  animated  and  noisy.  She 
seems  to  galvanize  even  very  stodgy,  well-behaved  people 
like  Tommy  Dodge,  into  an  absurd  activity.  There  was, 
for  instance,  about  that  box  of  hers  that  night  something 
different  from  the  other  boxes ;  something  almost  rowdy, 
but  as  Phil's  gown  was  perfect,  and  she  sat  almost 
motionless,  and  the  men  really  did  nothing  at  all  out 
of  the  way  except  laugh,  I  can  only  put  it  down  to  the 
fact  that  they  were  actually  having  a  good  time,  and 
that  no  one  else  was. 

I  had  an  opportunity,  before  the  lights  went  down, 
of  noticing  half-a-dozen  inimical  pairs  of  opera-glasses 
levelled  in  their  direction.  I  say  inimical,  because  I 
know  they  were  levelled  at  Phyllis  by  her  enemies,  but 
I  can't,  of  course,  tell  whether  the  way  they  were  actually 
used  betrayed  their  animosity.  Levelled  opera-glasses 
always  seemed  antagonistic  to  me.  I  shudder  under  them. 
Phyllis  didn't  shudder.  She  ignored  them,  just  as  she 
ignored  everything  unpleasant.  Even  Mrs.  Charles 
Bowers,  glittering  with  jet  and  diamonds  and  staring 
through  her,  could  not  disturb  her  serenity. 

Of  course,  when  I  first  got  home,  some  three  months 
before  this,  I  was  completely  unaware  of  anything 
peculiar  in  Phil's  social  position.  It  seemed  rather  funny 
even  to  think  about  social  position  in  Iroquois.  I  half 
expected  to  find  Louise  and  Phil  sitting  in  my  father's 
pantry  eating  chocolate-cake  together ;  certainly  I  expected 
to  resume  the  old  friendship  with  my  two  best  friends. 
That  was  one  thing  that  had  tempted  me  across  the 


222  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Atlantic.  I  felt  lonely,  and  I  wanted  a  companionship 
more  homely  and  comforting  than  that  Clem  and  Monica 
could  give  me.  What  I  found  was  certainly  a  more  real 
thing  than  intercourse  with  Clem  and  Monica,  but  it  was 
scarcely  more  comforting.  Phil  and  Louise  were  not 
on  speaking  terms.  Louise  professed  to  have  some  mys- 
terious reason  why  it  was  absolutely  impossible  for  her 
to  know  Mrs.  Patrick  O'Brien.  Other  people  could  know 
her  if  they  liked,  some  did  and  some  didn't,  but  she, 
Louise,  had  nothing  whatever  in  common  with  her,  and 
there  were  reasons. 

Phil  refused  to  enlighten  me.  I  was  obliged  to  piece 
things  together  for  myself.  I  gathered  that  society  was 
in  a  quandary.  It  didn't  know  what  to  do  about  the 
O'Briens.  The  mere  fact  that  Patrick  O'Brien  had 
been  a  "  Mick "  didn't  matter.  It  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  lost  sight  of,  or  never  known,  certainly  not  once, 
to  my  knowledge,  brought  up  against  him.  So  much 
for  democracy.  He  was  a  self-made  man,  and  a  local 
power.  He  ran  several  newspapers  and  was  active  in 
politics.  It  was  taken  for  granted  that  his  politics  were 
not  more  high-minded  than  any  one  else's,  but  he  was 
a  good  enough  sort  of  chap  all  the  same,  and  he  was,  on 
the  hearty  demand  of  Jim  Van  Orden,  admitted  to  the 
Club.  When  I  heard  this,  I  began  to  suspect  the  rea- 
sons for  Louise's  attitude.  Jim  was  not  the  only  husband 
who  had  insisted  on  his  wife  asking  the  O'Briens  to 
dinner.  Whether  the  men  were  just  flatly  infatuated 
with  Mrs.  O'Brien,  or  had  delicate  financial  dealings  with 
O'Brien  himself,  I  couldn't  make  out,  but  I  imagined 
it  was  a  little  of  both.  Anyhow,  I  remember  one  Opera 
night  when  Jim  deliberately  spent  two  entire  entr'actes 
in  the  O'Briens'  box,  because  Louise  had  neglected  to 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  223 

include  them  in  a  dinner-dance,  and  Louise  finally  went 
home  alone  at  the  end  of  the  third  act. 

It  was  all  very  absurd.  I  can  only  explain  the  attitude 
of  the  wives  in  the  crudest  terms.  Mrs.  Patrick  O'Brien 
was  the  prettiest  woman  in  Iroquois,  and  they  were  all 
jealous.  She  had  never  made  her  debut  so  they  could 
quite  easily  consider  her  an  outsider.  She  had  married 
a  politician,  and  politics  was  only  beginning  to  be  decently 
interesting  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  not  at  all 
so  in  Iroquois.  They  were  rich,  but  not  too  rich  to  be 
ignored  as  long  as  Mrs.  Armstrong  would  lead  the  way. 
You've  no  idea  how  crude  it  all  was.  Having  sat  at  the 
same  dinner-table,  Phil  and  Louise  would  meet,  perhaps, 
at  the  ribbon  counter  in  Braddock's  the  next  morning; 
and  Louise  would  stare  through  her ;  that  was  the  sort  of 
thing. 

It  must  have  been  extremely  galling,  and  I  confess 
I  admired  Phil's  behaviour  through  it  all.  It  was  plucky 
and  it  was  clever.  She  never  tried  to  get  back  at  them, 
and  she  never  cringed  or  toadied.  It  seemed  to  amuse 
her.  When  they  were  rude,  she  laughed  that  little  snick- 
ering chortle  of  hers,  and  she  exaggerated  her  naturally 
indifferent,  careless  manner.  Deliberately,  I  mean,  she 
did  things  to  shock  them,  funny  little  things,  just  to  give 
them  something  to  talk  about.  I  remember  one  night 
when  she  dined  with  me,  she  had  a  bad  cold,  which  I'm 
sure  she  pretended  was  a  much  worse  cold,  and  much 
more  disagreeable  than  it  really  was.  She  kept  blowing 
her  nose  till  it  was  crimson,  and  turning  all  her  P's  into 
B's  and  T's  into  D's.  That  was  her  kind  of  bravado. 
To  spite  the  women  who  were  jealous  of  her  charms,  she 
threw  them  away  and  dissolved  into  the  snuffles ;  we  were 
all  sneezing  and  saying  "  I  don-do w,"  before  the  evening 


224  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

was  over.  I  thought  it  very  funny.  Phyllis  was  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  people  in  Iroquois  with  a  sense  of 
humour.  I  have  never  seen  any  one  else  make  Jim  laugh 
as  she  did.  Jim  has  an  absurd  laugh.  It's  not  a  big 
ha-ha,  but  a  little  tight  falsetto  sound  that  chokes  and 
struggles  and  makes  him  weep.  He  screws  up  his  face 
and  his  eyes  water,  and  he  writhes  in  his  chair.  He  did 
that  night  at  the  Opera.  It  must  have  been  very  unpleas- 
ant for  Louise.  Her  box  was  only  three  away,  and  the 
most  she  could  do  was  turn  her  back  in  the  direction  of 
her  husband's  giggles,  which  she  did,  until  at  last  it 
was  too  much  for  her,  and  she  went  home. 

Jim,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  never  seriously  infatu- 
ated with  Phil,  of  that  I  feel  sure,  though,  Heaven  knows, 
I  don't  see  why  he  was  not.  I'm  sure  I  couldn't  have 
resisted  her  any  more  than  did  Binky.  I  never  blamed 
Binky.  I  saw  it  all  coming  as  plainly  as  if  I'd  been  a 
crystal-gazer;  that  very  first  night  she  was,  as  I've  said 
before,  just  exactly  the  kind  of  a  person  for  him. 
Together  they  could  laugh  and  frivol  and  slide  over 
the  surface  of  things  gracefully  and  beautifully,  to  their 
hearts'  content;  never  disappointing  each  other,  never 
troubled  by  the  mysteries  of  existence,  never  frightened 
by  the  passing  of  time.  Yes,  they  were  perfectly  fitted, 
and  I  saw  it,  and  I  threw  them  at  each  other.  I  don't 
know  why.  I  don't  think  I  really  thought  seriously  at 
first  of  finding  a  way  of  escape,  by  giving  him  to  her 
for  good.  Pat  must  have  always  loomed  rather  a  big 
obstacle  to  that  plan.  No,  I  imagine  it  was  more  just 
out  of  a  perverse  desire  to  spite  Iroquois  society.  It 
seemed  rather  fun  to  make  Phyllis  the  queen  of  that 
season,  for  I  soon  saw  that  there  was  a  legend  about 
Binky,  and  that  any  one  he  chose  would  be  considered 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  225 

favoured  of  the  gods.  He  wasn't  a  duke  yet,  but  he 
was  going  to  be.  Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers  never  allowed 
Iroquois  to  forget  that. 

If  I  had  only  known  how  soon  it  was  going  to  be, 
I  might  have  behaved  differently,  but  I  didn't  know,  how 
could  I  ?  that  dear,  beautiful,  decrepit  Uncle  Archie  was 
going  to  relinquish  his  fastidious  hold  on  life  just  at 
the  precise  moment  when  his  doing  so  would  get  Binky 
into  a  fix;  Binky  and  me  too.  Uncle  Archie,  I  always 
knew,  was  a  perverse  creature  with  a  taste  for  annoying 
his  family,  but  I  couldn't  have  foreseen  that  he  would 
die  just  in  the  nick  of  time  to  tie  me  up  for  ever  and 
ever. 


CHAPTER  Two 

I  HAD  been  in  Iroquois  for  about  three  months 
before  Binky  arrived.  He  followed  me  with  some 
idea  of  "  making-up  "  what  he  thought  was  a  quarrel, 
or  of  at  least  clearing  up  a  misunderstanding.  Poor 
boy!  The  misunderstanding  was  all  on  his  side.  He 
would  never,  I'm  sure,  have  been  made  to  see  that  this 
wasn't  a  case  for  reconciliation;  that  what  had  really 
happened  was  not  at  all  in  the  nature  of  a  quarrel.  He 
is  a  natural,  simple  creature,  and  the  idea  in  his  mind 
was  that  I  was  displeased  with  him  somehow,  and  that 
he  must  try  awfully  hard  again  to  please  me ;  that  was 
all.  That  was  his  purpose  in  coming,  and  he  actually 
was  beginning  to  make  love  to  me  all  over  again  in  a 
timid,  rather  awkward  way,  when  Phyllis  caught  him. 
I  saw  it  all  plainly  enough.  I  might  have  kept  him 
off  Phyllis,  I  suppose,  just  by  receiving  him  a  little 
differently.  I  couldn't.  It  would  have  been  too  indecent. 
Surely  flirting  with  one's  husband  is  a  horrid  per- 
formance, especially  when It's  very  difficult  to 

explain. 

I  didn't  dislike  Binky.  I  even  began  to  like  him  again, 
quite  differently,  in  Iroquois  that  winter.  He  seemed 
to  me  a  finer  product,  in  many  ways,  than  the  Amer- 
icans. I  began  to  see  that  lots  of  reticences  and  denials 
of  his  that  I  had  believed  in  were  due  to  coldness  in  him, 
were  really  due  to  fine  feeling.  In  the  midst  of  the 

226 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  227 

extreme  domesticity  of  Iroquois,  I  began  to  appreciate 
his  negations  along  that  line. 

Jim  and  Louise  quarrelling  over  that  Russian  dancer 
had  seemed  to  me  rather  appealing,  but  as  the  winter 
went  on,  I  got  tired  of  that  sort  of  thing.  Young  mar- 
ried people  in  Iroquois  gave  me  the  impression  of  having 
risen  together  in  a  state  of  conjugal  and  amorous  irri- 
tation from  a  double  bed,  and  of  being  about  to  retire 
there  again  as  sure  as  the  sun  went  down  and  the  lights 
of  society  went  out.  Husbands  seemed  perpetually  con- 
scious of  their  wives,  and  wives  of  their  husbands.  They 
caressed  and  squabbled  continually  in  public;  they  made 
remarks  that  lit  up  in  sudden  high  lights  the  most  private 
corners  of  their  households ;  they  gave  away  secrets  about 
themselves,  let  you  into  the  palpitating  centre  of  their 
family  life.  It  was  all  rather  unpleasant,  and  Binky,  in 
contrast,  was  a  great  relief.  He  was  always  so  perfectly 
and  just  sufficiently  unaware  of  my  existence,  and  he  was 
so  shocked  at  the  way  they  behaved  that  I  felt  positively 
more  drawn  to  him  than  ever  before;  that  is,  I  felt 
drawn  to  him  in  a  new  way.  I  remember  one  night  at 
Mrs.  Bowers',  when  Louise  lost  her  temper  and  called 
Jim  "  a  disgusting  man,"  and  rushed  out  into  her  motor 
through  the  snow,  with  no  cloak  on.  Binky  simply 
didn't  know  what  to  make  of  this  performance.  I  re- 
member his  standing  to  one  side  and  looking  from  Jim 
toward  the  door  through  which  Louise  had  disappeared, 
and  back  to  Jim  in  blank  amazement.  Jim  behaved  very 
badly.  He  lit  a  cigar,  turned  his  back  on  his  mother- 
in-law  and  sat  down.  She,  being  a  clever  women,  made 
no  move  at  all,  but  the  room  was  electric.  It  wasn't  a 
large  or  formal  dinner-party,  only  Tommy  Dodge  and 
one  or  two  others  and  ourselves,  but  still  —  one  doesn't 


228  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

quite  expect  that  sort  of  thing.  Binky's  face  was  comic. 
He,  at  length,  looked  at  me,  cocking  an  interrogatory 
eyebrow.  I  followed  Louise,  and  sat  with  her  in  the 
motor  until  at  last  Jim  came  out  with  his  coat  and  hat  on, 
and  took  her  home. 

I  began,  as  I  say,  to  like  Binky,  in  Iroquois,  all  over 
again,  in  a  different  way,  only  that  is  the  point,  it  was 
quite  different.  He  wasn't  the  man  I'd  been  in  love  with 
and  married.  He  was  another.  It  was  just  as  if  I'd  gone 
to  church  with  Mr.  Smith  and  found  myself  coming  back 
with  Mr.  Brown.  Naturally,  if  one  had  been  in  love 
with  Mr.  Smith  one  wouldn't  welcome  the  embrace  of 
Mr.  Brown,  a  stranger,  even  if  a  pleasant  stranger.  It 
was  like  that,  slightly  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
Brown  and  Smith  had  many  of  the  same  characteristics 
and  mannerisms,  and  that  the  man  I  now  lived  with 
made  me  sad  sometimes  by  reminding  me  of  the  other 
one. 

I  remember  the  night  that  he  arrived.  I  came  in  from 
somewhere  to  find  him  talking  to  my  father,  and  his 
appearance  set  my  nerves  jumping.  He  looked  so  very 
English  and  so  very  attractive  standing  there  before 
the  fire  in  my  father's  library.  Perhaps  it  was  that 
Iroquois  set  him  off  well ;  perhaps  it  was  that  I'd  for- 
gotten how  much  handsomer  he  was  than  other  men.  He 
had  changed  into  evening  clothes  and  dined,  and  he  was 
all  perfect  from  top  to  toe,  with  that  glowing  sunny  look 
on  his  face  that  I  had  found  so  wonderful  at  the  begin- 
ning. It  had  reached  me  again  and  made  my  heart  flutter. 
No,  I  wasn't  impervious  to  his  charm.  I  remember 
staring  at  his  head  with  its  close-cropped,  greyish  hair, 
and  the  slight  suggestion  of  side  whiskers  that  he  culti- 
vated, and  I  remember  admitting  to  myself  that  he  was 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  229 

very  good  to  look  at;  in  fact,  too  good  to  look  at;  and 
I  felt  rather  sick  at  heart.  And  when  he  came  forward 
quickly  to  meet  me,  I  was  tempted  —  yes,  temptation  is 
the  word  —  and  the  whole  affair  was  dreadfully  compli- 
cated by  my  father  sitting  there  in  his  deep  chair,  watch- 
ing us  benevolently  from  under  his  shaggy  white  eye- 
brows. I  remember  shivering  when  I  kissed  Binky.  I 
won't  pretend  to  interpret  that  shiver.  It  was  not  repul- 
sion, and  yet  I  wouldn't  have  kissed  him  at  all,  except  for 
my  father  watching  me  so  happily. 

One  thing  was  perfectly  clear  in  that  moment,  that  I 
must  go  on  deceiving  my  father. 

I  had  no  idea,  as  I  say,  when  I  went  to  America,  of 
leaving  Binky  permanently  or  getting  a  divorce  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort.  I  still  regarded  marriage  as  a  per- 
manent and  sacred  thing,  and  I  hadn't  reasoned  things 
out  in  my  own  special  case.  I  had  just  come  away,  to 
get  clear  of  something  unpleasant,  a  spectre  that  had 
reared  an  ugly  head  in  the  house. 

Those  weeks  after  the  meeting  with  Claire  Hobbes 
in  the  Park  had  been  very  unpleasant.  I  must  have 
behaved  quite  abominably.  I  grew  thin  and  irritable. 
Doctors  were  called,  and  talked  about  a  nervous  break- 
down. I  don't  know  who  sent  for  them.  Binky,  I  sup- 
pose, or  Aunt  Cora.  I  remember  Aunt  Cora  making 
grim,  sarcastic  remarks  about  nerves.  She  seemed  to 
me  then  very  inhuman  and  foreign,  so  did  Monica  and 
Clem  and  everybody  else.  They  all  became  suddenly 
aliens  and  strangers.  I  wanted  overwhelmingly  to  go 
home,  and  so,  at  last,  in  October,  I  went,  taking  the  boys 
with  me,  and  leaving  Binky  rather  crestfallen  and  sulky, 
rather  like  a  small  boy  who  doesn't  know  whether  he's, 
been  naughty  or  not. 


230  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

You  see,  Binky  is  not  fickle  in  his  tastes.  He  is  a 
creature  of  habit.  He  has  always  liked  vermouth,  and 
he  will  always  like  vermouth.  He  has  always  had  a 
weakness  for  a  greenish  flannel  suit,  and  he  will  always 
like  greenish  flannel  for  suits.  His  friendships  with  men 
are  invariably  mild  and  permanent.  He  never  out-shoots 
himself  or  bursts  into  an  enthusiasm  that  evaporates,  as 
I  do.  He  never  has  expected  more  of  people  than  they 
have  in  them  to  give,  except,  possibly,  in  the  case  of 
Phyllis.  Indeed,  he  expects  so  little,  that  when  he  gets 
what  he  wants  he  is  not  bored  with  it.  Dissatisfaction 
and  disillusions  come  from  longing  for  the  unattainable. 
Binky  doesn't  long.  His  crop  of  wild  oats  was  meagre. 
Claire  Hobbes  satisfied  him  for  six  years.  He  might 
have  been  true  to  me  for  twenty. 

Some  people  would  say  I  ought  to  have  sacrificed 
myself  and  my  fancies  to  keep  my  husband  respectable. 
I  couldn't. 

I  don't  suppose  at  first  when  I  locked  my  bedroom- 
door,  that  I  even  thought  about  what  Binky  would  do. 
Probably  I  had  some  vague  idea  of  a  celibate  life  for 
both  of  us  —  certainly  for  myself ;  but  when  I  left  for 
America  I  remember  thinking,  that  now  he  could  go 
back  to  Claire.  I  even  deluded  myself  into  the  belief 
that  I  was  doing  him  a  service  in  leaving  him  free  to  go 
to  her. 

He  didn't  go,  probably  because  he  didn't  want  to. 
I  don't  know  whether  she  had  accepted  Britton  by  that 
time  or  not.  Anyway,  it  doubtless  seemed  to  Binky  in 
rather  bad  taste  to  seek  her  out  again.  It  might,  con- 
ceivably, have  been  as  impossible  for  him  to  return  to 
her  as  for  me  to  resume  old  relations  with  him.  I 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  231 

wonder  if  it  was  like  that!  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  sur- 
prised. 

Anyhow,  he  sulked  for  a  couple  of  months,  and  wrote 
me  funny  little  letters  about  being  bored,  and  tried  to 
break  his  neck  learning  to  manage  an  aeroplane,  and  then 
he  just  packed  up  and  came  after  me.  He  didn't  warn 
me  that  he  was  coming;  that  is,  he  didn't  give  me  time 
to  stop  him,  merely  sent  me  a  wire  the  day  he  sailed  from 
Liverpool. 

My  feelings,  when  I  received  it,  were  mixed ;  but  mostly 
I  felt  dread  and  fatigue.  I  was  so  tired,  so  very  tired, 
and  I  had  a  great  dread  of  the  emotional  effort  involved 
in  meeting  him.  There  must  have  been  something  the 
matter  with  me  physically  —  liver  or  anaemia,  or  some- 
thing —  for  I'm  not  a  naturally  tired  person.  My  father 
evidently  was  troubled  about  me,  because  he  asked  me 
twice  to  see  a  doctor,  and  the  second  time  I  quite  lost 
my  temper  and  said,  "  No,  I  won't !  "  very  rudely,  and 
then  burst  into  tears.  Those  tears  and  my  look,  which 
were  rather  ghastly,  must  have  started  him  wondering. 
I  didn't  think  of  it  at  the  time,  but  I  imagine  he  thought 
Binky  had  been  horrid  to  me  in  some  way.  He  never 
questioned  me,  of  course,  or  talked  about  Binky,  but  I 
remember  now  that  he  looked  immensely  relieved  when 
Binky's  letters  began  to  come,  and  positively  beamed 
when  they  ended  in  that  cablegram.  It  arrived  at  break- 
fast-time. We  were  all  down  for  breakfast.  Father 
and  Jerry  and  Archie  and  Humpy.  I  had  got  into  the 
habit  again  of  coming  down  to  breakfast,  because  I 
woke  so  frightfully  early,  and  because,  too,  breakfast 
was  nice.  I  liked  pouring  out  my  father's  coffee,  and 
tying  on  the  boys'  bibs,  and  talking  to  Jerry  before  he 


232  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

went  to  the  works.  Those  were  very  nice  breakfasts, 
with  their  solid  lamb  chops  and  fried  potatoes  and  pan- 
cakes and  maple  syrup,  with  the  children  stuffing  to 
the  bursting  point,  and  my  father  half  hidden  behind  his 
newspaper,  handing  his  coffee-cup  across  to  me,  and 
Jerry's  ugly,  grinning  face  to  look  at  and  his  American 
talk  to  listen  to.  My  father's  eyes  were  on  me  when 
I  opened  the  cable.  "  Oh,"  I  said,  "  Binky's  coming  — 
sailed  yesterday."  And  then  I  looked  up  and  found  him 
beaming.  What  could  I  do  ?  I  couldn't  say,  "  Oh, 
bother,  I'm  too  tired !  "  though  the  words  were  on  the 
tip  of  my  tongue.  It  was  quite  obvious  to  me,  all  at 
once,  that  I  must  pretend,  at  all  costs,  that  I  was  glad. 
Fortunately,  while  I  was  elaborating  a  smile  with  which 
to  meet  my  father,  the  boys  began  pounding  on  the 
table  with  spoons  and  forks,  yelling  with  their  mouths 
full  about  Daddy  and  big  ships,  and  so  on;  just  as  if 
they  were  the  adored  sons  of  a  perfect  father,  and 
presently  I  was  quite  brightly  talking  about  how  nice  it 
would  be  and  how  funny  Iroquois  would  seem  to  Binky, 
but  how  much  funnier  Binky  would  seem  to  Iroquois. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  told  my  father  then.  Cer- 
tainly he  deserved  the  truth,  and  he  might  have  helped 
me.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  realized  that  he  was  bound 
to  know  some  day,  but  I  couldn't  tell  him.  I  couldn't 
tell  him  until  I  was  much  more  nearly  beaten  than  I 
was  then. 

I  dreaded  Binky's  arrival  because  I  was  tired,  and  I 
was  annoyed  by  being  interrupted  in  my  very  lazy  and 
leisurely  enjoyment  of  my  family.  My  father  and  Jerry 
and  I  had  been  having  such  nice  evenings  together,  with 
Dick  coming  in  to  make  a  fourth  sometimes.  We  played 
bridge  or  read  aloud  by  turns,  and  we  talked  a  lot  about 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  233 

South  American  railroads  and  Egyptian  excavations 
and  the  running  of  newspapers  and  the  beginning  of  an 
American  national  drama.  In  the  day-time  I  rummaged 
about  in  the  garret  among  old  books,  or  took  the  children 
out  for  a  walk  along  the  lake,  or  went  to  a  lecture  in 
the  University,  or  to  a  concert  with  my  father.  Jerry 
and  I  made,  too,  excursions  to  the  west  side,  to  visit  the 
funny  old  German  shops  we  used  to  frequent,  and  some- 
times I  went  with  him  to  the  works,  and  twice  we  had 
actually  been  down  on  the  farm  for  the  week-end :  once 
in  early  November  when  the  maple  trees  were  all  crimson 
and  gold,  and  once  in  December  when  the  branches  were 
bare  and  the  air  was  bitter-sweet  with  the  taste  of  winter. 

I  went  to  Iroquois  in  October,  and  Binky  followed  me 
just  after  Christmas.  The  Iroquois  season,  such  as  it 
is,  was  at  its  height.  I  foresaw  that  we  should  be  on 
the  run  every  moment.  Binky  was  too  big  a  prize  to 
let  slip  by  hostesses  all  agog  with  curiosity.  I  was  tired 
at  the  very  thought,  and  I  was  afraid.  I  was  afraid 
of  Binky  himself,  and  I  was  afraid  of  that  feminine 
curiosity.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  should  have  to  elab- 
orate a  very  perfect  defence  indeed  against  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  Charlie  Bowers.  It's  an  awful  thing  to  be  found 
out  in  failure  and  unhappiness  by  your  neighbours.  And 
then,  there  was  my  father.  I  was  in  for  deceptions  all 
round.  I  could  see  that,  and  yet  it  never  occurred  to  me 
that  Binky  himself  would  be  deceived,  or  how  very  awk- 
ward that  would  be. 

If  I  had  known  that  Binky  was  coming  as  a  suppli- 
cant, I  should  have  avoided  that  pitfall,  but  I  didn't.  I 
thought  that  probably  at  the  bottom  of  it  all  was  some 
money  trouble.  Our  money  affairs  had  never  been  put 
on  a  very  definite  basis,  and  it  had  occurred  to  me  that 


234  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

perhaps  Binky  hadn't  enough  to  go  on  with  when  I  left 
him.  His  position  might  have  become  extremely  embar- 
rassing. As  long  as  we  were  happy,  everything  had 
been  smooth  enough.  We  both  hated  money  matters.  A 
secretary  person  paid  all  the  household  bills.  Binky's 
own  pay  and  income,  about  a  thousand  a  year  in  all, 
kept  him  in  pocket-money,  and  we  pooled  the  rest  in  a 
common  account ;  that  is  to  say,  money  came  from  Amer- 
ica to  me,  I  paid  it  into  the  bank,  and  we  both  drew  on 
it  for  whatever  we  wanted.  There  was  enough  of  it, 
and  so,  as  I  say,  as  long  as  we  were  together  and  happy, 
nothing  mattered. 

But  now  that  I  had  been  in  America  three  months, 
it  was  quite  obvious  that  Binky's  bank  account  must 
be  getting  low.  It  would  be  difficult  in  the  circum- 
stances for  him  to  write  and  ask  for  a  remittance.  I 
ought  to  have  made  some  definite  arrangement  with 
him  before  I  left.  It  was  a  horrid  muddle.  I  felt  em- 
barrassed. It  seemed  to  me  a  difficult  and  disagreeable 
thing  to  hand  over  money  to  Binky  now.  It  was  too 
much  like  paying  a  head-footman.  I  felt  how  horrid 
it  was  for  him  to  be  dependent  on  me,  and  I  determined 
to  get  my  father,  as  soon  as  Binky  arrived,  to  make  him 
a  formal  settlement.  I  wanted  to  make  him  quite  inde- 
pendent of  me,  so  that  he  needn't  be  nice  to  me  at  all, 
and  I  wanted  my  father  to  do  this,  without  suspecting 
my  reasons  for  wanting  it.  You'll  admit  that  the  situ- 
ation was  a  little  difficult. 

Because  I  thought  Binky  quite  safely  immersed  in  his 
monetary  worries,  and  because  I  wanted  my  father  to 
think  me  quite  adequately  in  love,  I  smiled  on  my  hus- 
band too  cordially  the  evening  of  his  arrival.  I  stifled 
that  faint  feeling  that  had  enveloped  me  when  I  first 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  235 

looked  at  him,  and  I  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks  and 
laughed  a  little  and  patted  his  hand,  and  let  him  talk 
on  about  his  trip,  as  though  I  had  been  thirsting  for 
the  sound  of  his  voice.  Not  until  we  said  good-night  to 
my  father  and  went  upstairs,  did  I  realize  what  I  had 
done. 

Binky  followed  me  into  my  room  and  stood  in  the 
doorway.  I  had  a  suite  of  rooms  on  the  second  floor; 
my  own  old  rooms  had  been  done  up  for  me,  and  the 
schoolroom  turned  into  a  boudoir,  and  beyond  this,  what 
used  to  be  Dick's  room,  had  been  got  ready  for  Binky. 
I  started  to  dismiss  him  with  a  tired  gesture,  but  his 
face  startled  me.  A  queer  deprecatory  smile  trembled 
on  his  mouth.  His  eyebrows  were  lifted  in  a  questioning 
gaze,  timid  and  hopeful  and  self-conscious.  For  one 
minute  I  stared  at  him,  appalled,  while  the  essential 
and  eternal  horror  of  all  human  relationships  and  the 
general  craziness  of  the  universe  seemed  to  scream  at 
me  and  dance  before  my  eyes.  Then  I  said,  "  You  must 
be  tired,  Binky,  dear!  Good-night."  And  his  face 
straightened  and  grew  rigid,  and  he  went  away. 

I  suspect  him  of  lying  awake  for  a  little  time  that 
night,  making  up  his  mind  slowly  to  win  his  way  back 
to  me,  for  during  the  next  week  he  was  altogether 
delightful,  and  pathetically  considerate.  He  tried  so 
hard  to  be  a  good  boy.  He  went  down  to  the  works 
with  my  father  and  lunched  with  Jerry,  and  in  the  after- 
noon went  tobogganing  with  Arch  and  Humpy,  bringing 
them  both  in,  as  happy  as  kings,  for  tea  in  my  boudoir. 
It  is  funny  to  think  of  our  all  having  tea  together  in 
that  room,  with  the  snow  flying  by  the  windows  and  the 
grey-green  lake  surging  up  the  ice-coated  beach.  The 
children  were  boisterousy  happy,  and  Binky  played  with 


236  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

them  as  I  have  never  seen  him  play  before,  or  since, 
for  that  matter.  Sometimes  I  wonder  if  that  might  have 
been  the  beginning  of  something  new  and  fine  between 
Binky  and  me,  possibly,  I'm  not  sure.  I  may  have  made 
a  mistake  in  suspecting  his  devotion,  but  I  did  suspect 
it.  I  couldn't  get  out  of  my  head  the  fact  that  he  was 
dependent  on  me  for  money. 

It  happened  that  just  a  week  after  Binky  arrived,  I 
had  managed  to  talk  things  out  satisfactorily  with  my 
father,  and  so  when  Binky  came  in  one  afternoon,  quite 
obviously  screwing  himself  up  to  a  moral  effort  of  some 
kind  or  other,  I  was  prepared  for  him.  I  can  see  now 
that  I  misunderstood  him.  I  can  see  now  that  I  snubbed 
him,  and  hurt  him.  He  began  to  feel  about  for  a  way 
of  expressing  himself,  and  I  handed  him  an  envelope 
making  a  rich  man  of  him  in  his  own  right.  I  remember 
now  his  face  going  brick-red.  I  can  feel  now  the  morti- 
fication he  felt  then;  but  I  didn't  realize  it  at  the  time. 
I  was  suffering  too  much  myself  to  think  about  his 
finer  feelings.  I  don't  mean  that  I  rudely  flung  the 
money  at  him.  I  did  it  as  casually  and  lightly  as  I  could, 
but  it  must  have  been  rather  a  slap  in  the  face  for 
him  all  the  same.  I  remember  his  almost  gasping  for 
breath.  I  remember  the  queer  sound  of  his  ejaculation. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said,  "  my  dear  —  how  fearfully  good 
of  you  —  but  what  made  you  —  what  put  this  into  your 
head  —  what ?  "  Binky  isn't  a  very  articulate  per- 
son at  any  time.  He  was  at  a  loss.  He  gave  it  up ; 
just  looked  at  me  a  moment,  flushing,  miserably  troubled, 
bewildered,  then  he  gave  himself  a  fling  and  came  a  quick 
step  nearer. 

"  Joan  —  there's  something  —  I'm  stupid  —  tell  me 

Can't  we——?"  He  made  as  though  to  hold  out 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  237 

his  hands.  I  stiffened.  I  couldn't  help  it.  "  Can't 

we ? "  he  repeated.  His  eyes  sought  mine,  sought 

to  fill  out  the  deplorable  lack  of  his  speech,  but  I  under- 
stood well  enough.  I  understood  so  well  that  I  felt 
terribly  sorry  for  both  of  us.  He  came  quite  close,  and 
I  was  obliged  to  draw  away  and  speak  hurriedly. 

"  No  —  no  —  it's  impossible." 

He  made  a  vague,  exasperated  gesture. 

"  But  what's  it  all  about  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  You  think  I  am  a  cad  not  to  tell  you  about  the  boy  and 
Claire?" 

"  No,  not  just  quite  that." 

"What  then?" 

"  I  can't  explain  —  but  it's  finished.  It's  different  — 
you're  different.  It's  impossible  to  go  back,  behind  it  — 
I  mean  to  what  was  before." 

There  was  no  more  said,  and  no  more  to  say. 

Together  we  stared  at  it  —  the  difficult  situation  — 
but  I  doubt  if  it  was  clear  to  him  as  it  was  to  me. 
He  saw  only  an  immediate  disappointment.  I  saw  the 
future,  and  as  I  watched  him  pocket  that  legal  envelope 
and  turn  away,  I  realized  that  the  money,  even  now 
that  I  handed  it  over  to  him,  helped  to  bind  me,  and 
would  always  help  to  keep  me  bound,  to  him. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

IT'S  a  funny  thing  to  think  of  beautiful  Uncle 
Archibald  walking  gracefully  toward  his  grave, 
while  Binky  and  Phyllis,  with  equal  grace,  danced 
down  the  path  of  romance.  It's  a  funny  thing  to  think 
of  how  during  those  two  months  none  of  the  three  of 
them  had  any  idea  that  their  respective  paths  were  going 
to  converge  suddenly,  and  stop  short  at  a  hole  in  the 
ground  six  feet  long  by  two  wide. 

Phyllis  had,  of  course,  heard  of  Uncle  Archibald,  but 
if  she  thought  of  him,  it  was  as  an  obstacle  to  Binky's 
greatness,  and  if  by  any  remote  chance  she  ever  contem- 
plated his  death,  it  must  have  been  with  feelings  of 
pleasant  anticipation.  It  could  never  have  occurred  to 
her  that  his  falling  like  that,  off  his  horse,  and  hitting 
his  slender  head  against  a  gate-post,  could  possibly  spoil 
her  life. 

Phyllis  had  always  been  able  to  do  whatever  she  wanted 
with  men.  Binky  looked  much  more  tractable  than  Pat, 
and  of  course  he  would  have  been  entirely  amenable  had 
it  not  been  for  just  that  one  thing.  Claire  Hobbes  under- 
stood the  situation.  Phyllis  didn't.  Phyllis  is  very, 
very  fascinating,  but  she  isn't  quite  fascinating  enough  to 
bewitch  Uncle  Archie's  ghost  into  letting  Binky  off. 

I've  no  doubt  that  if  Uncle  Archie  had  lived  a  month 
longer,  Phyllis  would  have  had  her  way.  That  proves 
she  was  stronger ;  I  mean  her  hold  on  Binky  was  stronger 

238 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  239 

than  Claire's.  Of  course  I  helped  her.  I  had  helped 
her  by  giving  Binky  that  legal  envelope  just  the  day 
before  he  saw  her,  and  I  was  prepared  to  help  her  further 
by  divorcing  him,  but  even  so,  I  must  admit  that,  all 
on  her  own,  she  reduced  Binky  to  something  very  much 
like  pulp,  and  Claire  Hobbes  never  did  that.  Claire  had 
cared  too  much.  Phyllis  is  very  dangerous  in  her  shal- 
lowness,  and  very  safe.  She  can  let  herself  go  with 
absolutely  no  fear  of  anything  in  her,  any  primitive,  wild 
instinct  of  any  kind,  carrying  her  too  far.  She  can  purr 
and  laugh  and  kiss  and  be  kissed,  and  caress  and  be 
caressed  without  any  feeling  whatever  of  insecurity. 
Claire  looked  like  a  cold  creature,  but  she  is  at  white  heat, 
compared  to  Phil. 

Patrick  O'Brien  knew  this,  I  mean  he  knew  that  his 
wife  was  essentially  chaste  and  cold,  so  he  let  her  go 
her  own  way  in  perfect  freedom.  He  trusted,  not  to 
the  fineness  of  her  character,  but  to  the  insensibility 
of  her  beautiful  flesh.  I  suspected  this  from  the  begin- 
ning, partly,  perhaps,  because  I  knew  Phyllis,  but  also 
because  any  one  could  see  that  her  husband  was  close 
kin  to  a  slave-driver.  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  Phyllis 
was  mistaken  in  thinking  she  had  power  over  him.  Of 
course  she  managed  him  up  to  a  point.  She  managed  him 
because  he  liked  being  managed.  It  amused  him  to  trot 
about  her,  while  she  flicked  his  nose  with  the  sharp, 
dainty  little  lash  of  her  tongue.  It  amused  him,  and  it 
brought  him  his  reward.  He  was  working,  so  to  speak, 
for  his  dinner.  When  he  was  good  she  rewarded  him 
with  favours,  with  the  particular  dainties  for  which  he 
had  an  insatiable  appetite.  I  don't  mean  to  suggest  that 
this  case  of  beauty  and  the  beast  was  any  more  sordid 
than  heaps  of  other  marriages.  On  the  contrary,  Mr. 


240  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

and  Mrs.  Pat  O'Brien  were  rather  an  entertaining  couple. 
They  were  both  clever,  both  ambitious,  and  together  they 
manipulated  the  world,  laughing  at  its  attitude  toward 
themselves. 

There  was  something  provocative  of  envy  as  well  as 
disapproval  in  the  way  they  lived.  They  always  seemed 
to  be  having  an  extraordinarily  good  time.  One  saw 
Phil  flying  up  the  drive  in  a  motor  piled  full  of  men, 
or  dining  at  the  Saddle  and  Cycle  Club  in  the  same  sort 
of  company,  always  laughing,  her  eyes  shining,  sometimes 
accompanied  by  her  husband,  sometimes  not,  but  always 
happy,  always  making  her  companions  laugh.  One  saw 
Pat  playing  snow-balls  with  his  children  and  a  crowd  of 
others  on  Sunday  morning,  or  ice-boating  on  the  lake, 
a  sport  too  dangerous  for  most.  They  gave,  too,  excep- 
tionally good  dinners,  followed  by  informal  dances,  that 
were  supposed  to  be  extremely  rowdy  by  those  who 
didn't  go.  I  used  to  go.  I  admit  that  they  were  lively 
affairs,  very  hilarious  and  very  exhausting,  rowdy,  if  you 
like  to  call  rowdy  anything  so  delightfully  breathless  and 
full  of  laughter,  but  not  horrid  in  any  way.  There  was 
nothing  depraved  or  bored  in  the  way  we  danced.  Phyllis 
was  easily  the  best  dancer  in  Iroquois.  She  knew  every 
variation  of  every  dance  in  the  grizzly-bear,  bunny-hug 
line,  but  her  dancing  was  anything  but  vulgar.  It  had 
actually  a  kind  of  poetry  about  it,  that  eccentric,  comic 
poetry  that  is  so  expressive  of  the  vitality  of  America; 
and  her  partners  were  charged  with  the  same  thing. 
They  were  light-hearted  and  gay  and  silly;  at  their 
worst  only  too  noisy,  and  degenerating  toward  morning 
into  something  perhaps  too  much  like  a  small  boy's 
"  rough  house."  Women  were  obliged  to  mop  the  per- 
spiration off  their  faces,  faces  that  grew  crimson  with 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  241 

exertion.  Breath  came  in  gasps.  Snatches  of  song 
burst  out  unexpectedly  and  exploded  in  laughter.  Fur- 
niture was  broken  sometimes.  A  good  deal  of  glass 
was  smashed.  Tommy  Dodge,  sliding  down  the  ban- 
nisters, once  fell  on  his  head  and  got  himself  a  black 
eye;  but  it  was  all  innocent  enough,  unconceivably  inno- 
cent and  young.  Sometimes  we  kept  it  up  till  daylight, 
and  cooked  a  sort  of  breakfast,  or  a  continuation  break- 
fast-supper, on  chafing-dishes.  As  I  remember  it,  we 
were  always  ravenous  and  greedy.  I  can  remember,  it 
seems  to  me,  eating  great  quantities  of  creamed  oysters 
and  lobster  Newburg  and  baked  beans,  and  drinking 
quarts  of  coffee.  Phyllis  was  very  clever  with  a 
chafing-dish;  she  could  cook  almost  anything.  She 
would  put  an  apron  over  her  dress  and  go  about  it  as 
she  used  to  go  about  getting  her  father's  dinner  in  86, 
Oak  Street.  I  remember  Binky's  watching  her,  in  bliss- 
ful absorption,  make  some  sort  of  wonderful  mushroom 
concoction.  I  remember  his  gingerly  putting  in  the  red 
pepper  according  to  her  instructions,  and  then  when  it 
was  finished  I  remember  his  amazement  when  he  watched 
her  eat.  She  ate  rapidly  and  with  all  the  gusto  of  child- 
hood ;  positively  shovelled  things  down  through  her 
delicious  mouth,  cleaned  her  plate  in  no  time,  and 
wrinkled  up  her  nose  at  him  and  smacked  her  lips.  It 
was  a  new  experience  for  Binky.  He  had  never  seen 
anything  like  it,  or  like  her,  before. 

It  was  incredibly  fresh.  You  know  how  bored  people 
sometimes  amuse  themselves  in  London.  It  was  as  differ- 
ent from  that  sort  of  thing  as  gathering  nuts  in  May 
is  from  walking  the  streets  round  Leicester  Square. 


242  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Binky  loved  these  Sunday-night  parties.  He  isn't  a 
wonderful  dancer  himself,  but  he  used  to  stand  and  watch 
Phyllis  romping  up  and  down  her  drawing-room  in  her 
inimitable  style,  so  funny  and  so  full  of  grace,  with  a 
positively  idiotic  delight,  and  he  used  to  make  me  teach 
him  new  steps  by  the  hour.  I  was  nearly  as  keen  on 
dancing  in  those  days  as  Phil.  Pat  and  I  became  only 
less  expert  together  than  Phil  and  Tommy,  who  were  the 
wonders  of  Iroquois. 

It  makes  me  rather  sad  to  think  of  it  now.  I  heard 
of  somebody  who  had  seen  Pat  at  Sans  Souci,  the  other 
day,  in  New  York.  He  has,  so  they  tell  me,  lost  his 
head  over  that  Miriam  Allys,  the  dancer.  He  was  sit- 
ting at  her  table;  goes  there  every  night  when  he's  in 
New  York,  I  believe.  It's  rather  too  bad.  I'm  certain 
Phil  had  a  real  affection  for  her  husband;  so  had  I. 
There  was  something  very  attractive  about  his  big 
laugh,  his  hulking  form  with  its  tremendous  muscles, 
his  storms  of  talk.  He  was  a  tremendous  brute  with 
a  tremendous  brain.  Nobody  knew  how  he  had  got 
on  so  fast,  had  made  so  much  money,  or  had  gained 
so  much  political  influence,  but  the  sight  of  him  plung- 
ing down  town  in  his  very  long  red  car,  wrapped  in  a 
huge  fur  coat,  was  enough  to  convince  anybody  that 
he  could  drive  straight  through  the  Consolidated  Light 
Company's  office  buildings  like  a  battering-ram,  and 
come  out  the  other  side  unhurt,  if  he  wanted  to.  I  feel 
pretty  sure  that  his  business  methods,  as  well  as  his  pol- 
itics, were,  to  say  the  least,  rather  shady.  I  can  im- 
agine him  playing  newspapers  and  street  railroads  and 
public  offices  one  against  the  other  quite  unscrupulously, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  not  meanly.  Though  he  shov- 
elled up  and  dabbled  in,  and  levelled  down  and  piled 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  243 

up,  cartloads  of  all  kinds  of  muck  and  dirt,  every  day 
of  his  life,  there  was  about  him  something  essentially 
clean.  Men  liked  him  —  most  men  —  not  Binky ;  he  was 
rather  too  much  for  Binky  to  swallow.  There  were 
his  neckties,  which  were  never  right  somehow,  though 
Phyllis  .probably  chose  them.  They  were  nice  enough, 
but  he  always  put  the  wrong  one  on  with  the  wrong 
suit,  and  it  invariably  travelled  toward  one  of  his 
ears.  His  clothes,  which  were  almost  too  obviously 
expensive  clothes,  never  seemed  to  fit.  Their  cut  was 
good,  but  his  movements  were  so  constant  and  rapid 
that  his  coat  and  trousers  and  waistcoat  and  collars 
were  for  ever  being  pulled  up  and  out  in  the  wrong  way. 
He  had,  for  instance,  a  habit  of  stretching  his  arms 
suddenly  straight  out,  and  then  he  would  forget  to  pull 
down  his  sleeves,  and  they'd  stick  on  his  biceps  with 
the  cuffs  coming  only  to  within  an  inch  of  his  large, 
hairy,  red  wrists.  The  same  with  his  trousers,  which 
he  was  always  hitching  up  until  one  could  see  a  bit 
of  garter  and  calf  above  a  beautiful  silk  sock.  It  seemed 
too  bad  that  he  was  so  very  uncomfortable  in  such 
very  good  clothes.  It  gave  one  a  feeling  of  its  being 
a  waste  and  extravagance  for  him  to  wear  anything  at 
all,  he  would  obviously  have  been  so  much  more  com- 
fortable and  unembarrassed  in  nothing.  Of  course  Binky, 
who  could  look  elegant  in  a  pair  of  ragged  cotton 
trousers  and  a  celluloid  collar,  and  to  whom  the  wearing 
of  clothes,  however  old  and  shabby  they  may  be,  is  almost 
a  religious  rite,  of  course  to  him,  Pat  seemed  simply 
a  grotesque  bounder.  Poor  Pat!  His  great  red  paws, 
with  their  wonderfully  manicured  finger-nails,  were 
funny.  They  would  have  been  pathetic  if  anything  about 
so  successful  a  person  could  be ;  and  his  walk  was  rather 


244          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

like  an  elephant  treading  on  eggs.  He  would  come  into 
Phil's  drawing-room  on  tiptoe,  his  boots  squeaking.  He 
would  lift  his  feet  carefully,  and  haul  one  up  suddenly 
if  anything  creaked,  as  though  afraid  he  might  go 
through  into  the  cellar,  or  smash  a  baby  under  his 
foot.  And  Phyllis  would  laugh  and  pull  him  down  to 
her  and  straighten  his  necktie  and  smooth  his  hair,  and 
sniff  at  his  cheek  with  her  delicate  nose  to  see  if  he 
had  let  the  barber  perfume  him,  a  weakness  he  had 
of  which  she  strongly  disapproved.  If  he  smelt  of 
perfume,  then  she  would  send  him  up  to  wash  it  off, 
and  he  would  go,  meekly  turning  an  enormous,  ashamed 
back  on  us,  and  then  in  the  hall  would  start  upstairs 
with  a  terriffic  audible  bound.  Binky,  as  I  say,  didn't 
appreciate  him,  but  Jim  always  said  he  was  a  "  darned 
nice  fellow."  They  —  Jim  and  Pat  —  played  golf  to- 
gether sometimes,  and  went  duck-shooting.  Pat  was  a 
splendid  athlete.  You  remember  that  it  was  on  the 
football  field,  playing  for  Columbia,  that  he  first  came 
to  light  after  his  disappearance.  I  believe  after  that 
football  game  Jim,  in  a  way,  took  him  up,  and  a  queer 
sort  of  friendship  developed  of  which  Louise  didn't  at 
all  approve.  She  used  to  say  that  Pat  was  a  very  bad 
influence  for  Jim,  made  him  drink  too  much  and  got 
him  into  dishonest  business  transactions.  She  even  went 
so  far  as  to  tell  me  one  day,  that  there  was  a  real 
estate  deal  on,  which  had  to  do  with  the  Red  Light 
District  — the  Red  Light  District  is  made  up  of  houses 
of  prostitution  —  and  that  Pat  had  offered  to  help  Jim 
make  a  hundred  thousand  out  of,  indirectly,  the  white 
slave  traffic.  She  told  me  this  when  things  had  rather 
come  to  a  head  between  Binky  and  Phyllis,  and  when, 
too,  she  was  — though  I  didn't  know  it  — beginning  to 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  245 

be  jealous  of  me.  I  could  see  she  was  very  much 
excited  and  I  told  her  flatly  I  didn't  believe  it;  but  I 
don't  know.  It  might  have  been  true.  I  know  my  father 
once  turned  down  a  similar  proposition  made  by  old 
Michael  O'Brien,  Pat's  father,  when  he  was  political 
boss  of  the  Democratic  party.  I  remember  overhearing 
something  that  passed  between  my  father  and  mother 
about  it,  and  of  her  telling  me  afterwards,  apropos  of 
nothing,  that  though  sometimes  she  was  frightened  at 
our  being  so  rich,  she  was  glad,  so  glad  to  know  it  was 
all  clean  money. 

My  father  never  said  anything  to  me  about  Patrick 
O'Brien,  and  never  objected  to  my  having  him  in  the 
house,  so  I  judged  that  he  wasn't  as  black  as  Louise 
painted  him.  It's  difficult  to  imagine  a  man,  really  a 
bad  lot,  who  enjoys  life  so  much.  Pat's  face  is  as 
entertaining  as  Park  Lane  on  a  sunny  day.  It  is  full 
of  light  and  movement,  far  too  alive  to  be  ugly.  Indeed, 
his  red,  curly  hair,  his  enormous,  mobile  features,  and 
his  unruly  voice  which  he  tries  to  soften,  and  which 
bursts  suddenly  from  a  small  falsetto  into  a  bass  roar, 
makes  him  a  most  amusing  creature.  I  can  understand 
perfectly  why  Phyllis  married  him.  I  don't  think  she 
needs  any  justification,  but  if  she  does,  it  lies  in  his 
terrific  hunger  for  her.  It  must  be  wonderful  to  feel 
yourself  as  delicious  to  a  man  as  that.  It  must  be  won- 
derful and  fearful  and  intimidating.  I  can  quite  under- 
stand Phyllis  giving  in  to  Pat;  what  I  can't  understand 
is  her  wanting  to  leave  him  for  Binky;  for  it  wasn't, 
you  understand,  altogether  or  even  primarily  her  hope 
of  stepping  into  Aunt  Cora's  shoes  that  allured  her.  It 
was  the  idea  of  belonging  to  Binky  himself.  I  suppose 
he  attracted  her  by  force  of  contrast,  and  I  suppose,  too, 


246  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

that  Pat's  insatiability  did  begin  to  pall.  I  remem- 
ber her  telling  me  that  some  friend  of  hers  always  made 
herself  drunk  on  whiskey  when  she  went  to  bed  as  a 
help  through  a  disgusting  ordeal.  Phil  didn't  suggest 
that  she  herself  ever  had  to  resort  to  getting  drunk, 
but  her  telling  me  this,  in  the  way  she  did,  led  me  to 
think  somehow  that  she  didn't  enjoy  much  the  sort  of 
thing  that  goes  on  in  bedrooms. 

And  then  Binky  must  have  seemed  rather  wonderful 
to  Iroquois.  He  was,  after  all,  the  heir  to  a  dukedom, 
and  Phyllis  was  enough  of  an  American  to  find  that 
attractive.  The  little  house  in  Oak  Street  and  the  steamy 
kitchen,  and  her  father's  very  long,  living  death  in  the 
front  bedroom,  were  still  fresh  in  her  mind.  Pat,  of 
course,  had  released  her  from  these  nightmares,  but 
there  must  have  existed  still  a  sufficiently  horrid  past 
to  make  the  vision  of  ducal  castles  seem  a  magnificent 
future.  Phyllis  is  essentially  a  restless  person.  Pat  had 
done  all  that  he  could  for  her;  at  least  so  it  seemed  to 
her,  and  she  wanted  a  change.  She  is  greedy,  too.  She 
gobbles  up  life,  just  as  she  gobbles  up  food.  "  Fun," 
she  says,  is  what  she  wants,  "  fun,  and  still  more  fun." 
Binky,  doubtless,  represented  to  her  an  endless  good 
time,  and  she  probably  gathered  that  the  sort  of  fun 
he  would  give  her  would  be  of  a  more  finished  and 
refined  kind  than  anything  she  could  have  with  Pat.  I 
am  perfectly  certain,  from  little  remarks  that  she  lei 
drop,  that  she  thought  Binky  a  most  depraved  person. 
He  must  have  made  himself  out  one  before  her.  You 
can't  blame  him!  She  so  obviously  enjoyed  it  when  he 
told  dreadful  stories  about  his  enormous  losses  at  baccarat 
and  his  etherizing  parties  in  Paris,  that  he  had  to  pile 
it  on.  And  then,  of  course,  he  is  more  depraved  in  his 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  247 

tastes  than  the  men  she  knew.  Simple  soul  that  he  is, 
he  has  been  touched  with  the  peculiar  deadly  ailment  of 
his  class,  and  he  has  become  acquainted  with  boredom. 
Genuine,  unassuming  boredom  places  a  man  at  a  great 
advantage.  Binky  fairly  kinged  it  over  Iroquois.  He 
started  a  gambling  club,  and  he  taught  Jim  and  Tommy 
Dodge  and  a  lot  of  others  how  to  enjoy  opium,  and  his 
taste  came  to  be  considered  the  very  last  word  in  re- 
fined dissipation.  At  first,  I'm  sure,  he  was  quite  natural 
about  it  and  unconscious,  but  later  on,  when  he  saw 
how  it  made  Phyllis  open  her  blue  eyes  and  shiver,  I'm 
sure  he  went  on  at  a  wilder  and  wilder  pace,  just  to 
please  her.  He  really  behaved  rather  badly.  It  was 
stupid  of  him.  I'm  sure  he  did  the  young  men  of  Iro- 
quois more  harm  in  two  months  than  the  Ebenezer  Sprott 
Church  could  undo  in  a  year  of  revivals.  And  it  did 
him  no  good.  It  only  made  Pat  hate  him.  It  was  only 
laying  up  for  Phyllis  a  very  terrible  hour  at  the  hands 
of  her  husband. 

Knowing  Binky  as  I  did,  I  didn't  realize  what  was 
going  on.  I  didn't  see  the  murky  cloud  of  glory  that 
hung  over  him,  though  I  might  have  known  if  I  had 
only  remembered  how  he  appeared  to  me  when  I  first 
saw  him.  I  had  forgotten  all  that,  and  it  never  occurred 
to  me  that  Pat  hated  him  until  one  night  at  their  house 
when  Binky  was  playing  the  piano,  and  I  caught  sight 
of  Pat's  great  red  face  scowling  down  on  Binky's  long 
back.  Pat,  of  course,  would  be  inclined  to  despise  any 
man  who  could  play  the  piano,  but  there  was  more  in 
his  look  than  contempt;  there  was  rage  and  hatred,  the 
rage  of  a  very  powerful  beast  against  a  creature  too 
weak  to  be  attacked.  Then  his  eyes  travelled  across 
to  mine.  It  was  a  horrid  moment.  All  the  rest  were 


248          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

singing  and  fooling  about  the  piano.  I  got  up  and 
crossed  to  Pat  where  he  stood  in  the  door  behind  them. 
I  think  I  intended  to  speak  to  him,  but  when  I  got  near 
I  couldn't.  I  was  too  frightened.  His  necktie  was,  as 
usual,  under  one  ear,  and  his  small  diamond  shirt-studs 
glinted  foolishly  in  his  vast  shirt  bosom,  and  he  glared 
at  me.  I  could  think  of  nothing  but  one  evening  years 
and  years  before,  when  he  and  Phyllis  and  I  stood  at 
the  top  of  Oak  Street.  I  remembered  distinctly  the 
hole  in  his  trousers  and  the  dirt  on  his  hands.  I  must 
have  stood  idiotically  speechless  in  front  of  him  for  fully 
a  minute,  until  he,  all  of  a  sudden,  burst  into  a  roar 
of  laughter.  It  was  so  terribly  loud  that  Binky  stopped 
playing  instantly,  and  every  one  looked  up,  startled,  and 
stared  at  him,  a  motionless  group  of  figures,  and  Pat 
went  on  laughing  at  them.  It  was  like  a  bull  bellowing  at 
a  lot  of  sheep. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

I  DO  N'T  want  to  be  too  hard  on  Louise,  because 
she's  dead,  and  because,  too,  I  realize  now  that  at 
the  very  last,  when  it  was  too  late,  she  was  beginning 
to  learn  something  about  reality.  I  believe  she  made  a 
discovery  just  before  she  died  so  tragically.  I  believe 
she  came  directly  up  against  her  own  soul  after  years 
and  years  of  dodging  it  in  and  out  of  the  elaborate 
furniture  of  her  absurd  existence.  It  must  have  been 
a  terrible  thing  for  her  to  come  to  grips  with  her  own 
immortal  self,  and  not  the  least  terrible  part  of  it  must 
have  been  the  discovery  of  how  that  self  actually  appeared 
to  Jim.  I  believe  that  was  what  unhinged  her.  Her 
extremely  silly  behaviour  during  those  last  dreadful 
days  at  Saracens  was  due  to  nerves,  and  the  nerves 
were  due  to  the  sudden  visions  of  Heaven  and  Hell 
that  had  been  vouchsafed  to  her  by  a  capricious  God. 
I  can't  explain  it  any  other  way  than  by  saying  that 
God  behaved  very  badly  to  Louise.  He  let  her  go  on  in 
her  poor  little  lying,  attitudinising  way  until  it  was  too 
late,  and  then  He  gave  her  a  vision  of  Himself,  just  when 
the  sight  would  unnerve  her  most  dangerously  and  make 
her  blunder  most  hopelessly  with  Jim.  If  He,  the  Om- 
nipotent, had  any  idea  of  really  bringing  her  to  life,  of 
making  her  into  a  new  creature,  and  of  restoring  those 
two  poor  things  to  happiness,  He  should  have  appeared 
to  her  sooner  —  that's  all.  No  —  the  case  is  black  against 
Him.  It  suggests  a  past  master  in  irony. 

249 


250  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Of  course  God  didn't  have  any  more  to  do  with  it 
than  Mrs.  Bowers;  perhaps  not  so  much.  I  seem  to 
see  Mrs.  Bowers  squabbling  with  Him  all  the  way,  as 
to  which  of  them  should  have  most  to  say  about  Louise's 
fate.  I  seem  to  see  two  figures  always  hovering  about 
whenever  anything  important  happened;  that  is,  when 
a  baby  was  born  or  a  new  motor  was  bought  or  a  dinner- 
party given;  and  it  is  the  little  modish  figure  of  Mrs. 
Bowers  that  always  ousts  the  other,  the  shadowy  Divine 
one. 

Perhaps  you  think  this  mention  of  God  in  connection 
with  Louise  and  her  mother  out  of  place.  It  isn't.  He 
existed  for  them,  and  they  were  afraid  of  Him  while 
they  professed  to  despise  Him.  They  were  afraid  of 
Him  and  they  were  afraid  of  the  devil,  and  they  proved 
this  by  the  nervous  manner  in  which  they  avoided  the 
church  and  the  extreme  energy  with  which  they  tackled 
moral  questions.  Both  Louise  and  her  mother  were 
capable  of  great  excitement  over  wickedness.  Heaps 
and  heaps  of  things  were  to  them  wrong.  Louise  had 
been  brought  up  to  be  a  good  girl,  and  a  good  girl  she 
remained  to  the  last  day  of  her  life.  I  mean  she  avoided 
wickedness  as  she  understood  it;  that  is,  she  kept  the 
law  which  was  a  remnant  of  the  law  which  her  Puritan 
forefathers  had  laid  down.  I  don't  suppose  she  ever 
told  a  lie,  or  ever  looked  upon  another  man  to  want 
him,  or  ever  stole  anybody's  property  of  any  kind,  or 
did  any  of  the  obvious  things  that  are  forbidden  in  the 
Ten  Commandments.  Sex  immorality  was  to  her  a  hor- 
rible thing.  This  was  no  affectation  on  her  part.  It  was 
inconceivable  to  her  that  any  decent  woman,  any  mod- 
erately clean  and  intelligent  woman  that  is,  should  com- 
mit adultery.  And  besides  not  doing  those  things  which 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  251 

she  ought  not  to  do,  she  had  a  positive  ideal  of  the 
things  she  ought  to  do,  and  she  actually  tried  to  realize 
it.  She  saw  herself  as  a  charming  and  faithful  wife, 
and  as  a  good  mother.  She  was  most  particular  about 
her  child,  a  very  severe  and  affectionate  disciplinarian; 
and  all  her  antics,  which  drove  Jim  so  nearly  crazy, 
were  calculated  to  keep  him  in  love  with  her. 

I  quite  admit  that  she  was  a  more  logical  person 
than  I ;  I  don't  want  to  minimize  her  virtues,  but  you 
see  this  sort  of  religion  of  the  right  thing  to  do  didn't 
make  her  in  the  least  kind  or  generous  or  loving.  And, 
personally,  I  can't  see  that  being  a  moral  person  without 
any  single  generous  impulse,  or  even  any  small  capacity 
for  suffering  with  other  people ;  I  can't  see  that  it's 
any  use.  I  sometimes  think  that  it  would  have  been 
an  excellent  thing  for  Louise  to  have  fallen  from  her 
place  as  a  virtuous  wife  and  mother.  If  she  could  have 
had  just  one  vital  and  illegitimate  experience,  one  expe- 
rience which  could  not  be  pigeon-holed  in  its  little  place 
in  the  ridiculous  social  scheme  that  was  her  universe, 
she  might  have  been  different.  However,  she  never  had 
such  an  experience.  Her  mother,  I  imagine,  had  made 
it  quite  impossible  that  she  ever  should  have.  She  had 
snipped  and  clipped  away  at  the  child's  mind  so  cleverly 
and  consistently,  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  ever  to 
dream  of  any  adventure  beyond  the  confines  of  respect- 
able luxury.  I've  heard  of  a  mother  who  stands  at  her 
children's  beds  when  they  are  asleep,  and  influences 
their  character  by  repeating  to  them  ideas  which  sink 
into  their  minds  without  their  knowing  it.  Rather  a 
mean  advantage  to  take  of  them,  it  seems  to  me.  I 
don't  suppose  Mrs.  Bowers  ever  did  just  that,  but  all 
during  the  period  of  Louise's  adolescence,  when  her 


252  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

little  mind  was  yet  half  asleep,  I  can  hear  Mrs.  Bowers 
repeating  over  and  over :  "  The  great  day  of  your  life 
is  your  wedding-day.  The  most  important  thing  in  life 
is  marriage.  Always  be  certain  that  your  husband  adores 
you,  for  in  this  way  you  will  make  your  happiness  se- 
cure. Money  and  jewels  and  a  nice  house  are  far  more 
lasting  than  the  excitement  of  flirtation.  You  won't 
be  able  to  avoid  having  children  if  you  want  to,  so  make 
up  your  mind  to  love  them.  Children  will  save  you 
from  boredom  and  give  you  a  hold  over  your  husband. 
Be  sure  your  children  adore  you.  Their  love  will  save 
you  from  despair,"  etc.,  etc.  And  over  and  over  again: 
"  Always  be  certain  that  your  husband  adores  you.  Let 
him  give  you  presents.  Let  him  not  have  anything  to 
do  with  other  women.  Men  are  queer,  but  pretend  that 
he  should  be  true  to  you  just  as  he  expects  you  to  be 
true  to  him."  I  seem  to  hear  Mrs.  Bowers  running  on 
and  on  in  a  kind  of  hypnotic  monotone,  while  she  stood 
guard  over  Louise's  youth.  I  seem  to  see  her  as  a  very 
stylish  witch,  a  witch  by  Poiret,  murmuring  incantations 
over  her  daughter,  casting  a  spell  upon  her  from  which 
she  was  never  to  free  herself.  It  sounds  absurd,  but 
if  you  had  seen  her  as  I  have,  swooping  down  on  them 
in  their  own  menage,  positively  the  witch's  broomstick 
was  as  visible  as  her  hat. 

Louise  and  Jim  lived  in  a  very  expensive  up-to-date 
flat  on  Jefferson  Drive,  just  around  the  corner  from 
Mrs.  Bowers.  Louise  had  a  telephone  by  her  bedside, 
and  telephoned  her  mother  every  morning,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  too,  for  all  I  know.  You  can  im- 
agine that  to  a  jumpy  person  like  Jim,  it  might  have 
been  a  cause  of  annoyance  that  even  his  wife's  bed  was 
exposed  so  actually  to  the  presence  of  his  mother-in- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  253 

law.  There  was  always  the  danger  of  that  telephone 
ringing  and  of  that  peculiar  thin,  smooth  voice  begin- 
ning to  talk  at  the  other  end.  I  don't  mean  that  Mrs. 
Bowers  was  ever  so  tactless  as  to  ring  them  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  or  that  she  deliberately  annoyed  Jim 
any  more  than  was  necessary;  on  the  contrary,  she  was 
always  soothing  him  and  purring  over  him,  and  for  ever 
professing  to  take  his  side  against  Louise.  The  hor- 
rible part  was  not  that  she  invariably  backed  up  Louise 
against  him,  but  that  she  was  always  there  to  take  one 
side  or  the  other,  and  there  always  were  sides  to  take. 
Violent  disputes  were  the  usual  thing  in  that  house. 
Jim  was,  to  put  is  mildly,  an  eccentric  sort  of  person 
to  live  with.  He  has  a  very  quick  temper  and  an  acute 
ear  for  the  truth.  Hypocrisy  hits  him  on  the  raw,  and 
when  he  is  hit  on  the  raw  he  does  not  behave  always 
like  a  gentleman,  not,  for  instance,  like  Binky.  When 
Binky  is  annoyed,  he  laughs  and  turns  his  back.  Not 
so  with  Jim.  He  grows  purple,  his  teeth  chatter,  he  grabs 
things  in  his  hands  and  breaks  them.  He  is  terrifying 
because  you  can  see  that  he  is  terrified  of  himself.  A 
lot  of  devils  seem  to  be  let  loose  in  him,  and  his  effort 
to  hold  them  in  is  painful.  Usually  he  succeeds.  I 
surmise  this,  because  it  alone  explains  Louise's  stupid- 
ity. She  simply  never  realized  what  was  going  on  be- 
fore her  eyes,  or  she  couldn't  have  persisted  in  annoy- 
ing him  so.  You'd  think  even  she,  stupid  as  she  was, 
might  have  understood  those  agonizing  signs,  might 
have  foreseen  what  would  one  day  happen,  but  she 
didn't. 

On  the  rare  occasions  when  he  did  lose  control,  she 
always  found  an  explanation  which  satisfied  her,  and 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  truth.  Usually  she 


254  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

would  put  it  down  to  drink.  When  I  picked  her  up 
off  the  floor  behind  that  meagre  fringe  of  palms,  that 
masked  her  so  completely  from  the  dancers,  at  that 
dreadful  fancy-dress  ball  in  New  York,  the  first  word 
she  whispered  was  champagne,  and  on  the  way  back 
to  our  hotel  she  kept  repeating :  "  I  could  never  forgive 
him,  Joan,  never,  if  I  didn't  know  that  it  was  the  cham- 
pagne." 

I  tried  that  night  to  get  at  the  truth  with  her,  to  make 
her  see  it,  but  it  was  impossible. 

We  were  in  New  York  together,  Jim  and  Louise  and 
Binky  and  I,  staying  at  a  hotel  for  a  few  days,  and 
that  night  we  had  gone  to  a  big  affair,  a  Bal  Masque. 
It  was  in  the  middle  of  it,  about  one  o'clock,  when  Jim 
came  to  me.  I  was  dancing.  He  caught  me  on  the  edge 
of  the  ballroom  and  dragged  me  away  from  my  partner, 
whoever  he  was,  I've  forgotten. 

"  Louise  wants  you,"  he  said  curiously.  "  Hurry  — 
Binky's  watching  her  —  keeping  them  off " 

I  fourid  her  lying  on  the  floor  in  an  alcove,  behind 
some  palms,  and  Binky  standing  over  her  helplessly,  try- 
ing, I  suppose,  to  shield  her  from  the  eyes  of  New  York. 
She  lay  perfectly  still  in  a  pool  of  water.  I  suppose  it 
was  water,  but  it  may  have  been  champagne,  the  cham- 
pagne she  was  always  talking  about. 

At  first,  the  fact  that  Jim  had  knocked  her  down, 
didn't  occur  to  me.  I'm  not  sure  even  now  that  he 
did.  When  he  saw  how  terrified  I  was,  he  laughed.  He 
laughed  more  disagreeably  than  I've  ever  heard  him 
laugh. 

"  She's  faking,"  was  all  he  said. 

Perhaps  he  struck  out  at  her  and  she  let  herself  be 
knocked  down.  I  don't  know.  I  can't  tell.  He  must, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  255 

anyway,  have  hit  her,  or  started  to.  It's  impossible 
to  tell  how  much  of  it  all  was  hysteria  on  her  part,  or 
fake,  as  he  called  it.  She,  poor  child,  didn't  know  her- 
self;  but  she  wasn't  really  unconscious  or  even  in  a 
faint.  Binky  told  me  afterwards  that  she  wouldn't  let 
him  lift  her  up  till  I  came.  When  he  tried  to,  she 
rolled  her  eyes  and  gave  a  sob  and  said  "  No  —  no  — 
leave  me  alone,"  in  such  a  loud  voice,  that  he  gave  it 
up,  afraid  curious  people  would  crowd  in  on  them.  He 
just  stood  there  for  those  long  minutes  while  Jim  went 
to  get  me,  and  I  suppose  he  suffered  more  than  any 
of  them  in  a  way,  thinking  every  second  that  he  would 
be  discovered  with  a  lady  soaking  wet  on  the  floor  behind 
him. 

I  sent  him  for  our  coats.  Hers  was  a  long  fur  one, 
fortunately.  I  managed  to  get  her  on  to  her  feet,  to 
wrap  is  round  her,  and  then  the  four  of  us  went  round 
and  down  a  side  stair  and  so,  with  Louise  clinging  to 
me,  her  teeth  chattering,  and  Jim  following  in  a  fury 
behind,  we  got  into  our  car. 

Jim  disappeared  when  we  reached  the  hotel.  I  don't 
know  where  he  went. 

At  the  door  of  the  lift  he  snarled  to  me  — 

"She's  done  it  before,  I  tell  you.  It's  pretending!" 
and  then  went  off.  Binky  didn't  see  him  again  till  next 
day. 

It  seems  that  some  woman,  dressed  like  I  don't  know 
what,  had  been  flirting  with  Jim.  He  had  danced  with 
her,  and  she  had  hugged  him  with  long  bare  arms  and 
had  kissed  him,  so  Louise  said.  It's  quite  possible. 
You  know  what  people  are  at  these  affairs,  and  what 
they  will  do,  even  quite  good  people  and  Americans  at 
that,  to  the  noise  of  a  drunken  rag-time.  Anyhow 


256          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Louise  went  after  them.  She  dragged  him  into  that  al- 
cove and  made  a  scene.  When  he  laughed  and  said 
it  had  been  nothing  but  horse-play,  she  proceeded  to 
show  him  herself  what  the  other  woman  had  done  to 
him.  I  mean  that  she  proceeded  to  illustrate  on  him 
the  embrace  she  thought  so  beastly  —  and  then  he  knocked 
her  down. 

This  is  as  she  told  it  to  me  while  I  was  stripping  off 
her  clothes.  And  then  she  fainted,  and  he  threw  a  jug 
of  water  or  something  over  her. 

"  Thank  God  I'm  clean,  anyway ! "  she  said,  while  I 
rubbed  her  with  a  bath-towel. 

I  tried  to  explain  to  her  how  it  would  affect  a  man 
like  Jim,  or  any  other  man  for  that  matter,  who  cared 
about  his  wife's  immaculateness  —  how  it  would  affect 
him,  to  have  her  suddenly  play  the  part  of  a  cocotte 
to  him,  but  do  you  suppose  she  could  see  it?  No.  She 
couldn't  even  see  that  there  was  anything  to  see. 

She  kept  repeating  that  thank  God  she  was  clean,  and 
always  had  been  clean,  and  that  if  it  weren't  for  his  being 
drunk  she  would  never  forgive  him. 

"  But  what  did  he  say,  Louise,  when  you  kissed  him 
like  that?"  I  urged. 

"  He  said  — '  Damn  you !  What  do  you  think  you 
are  ?  ' —  and  knocked  me  down." 

"  Don't  you  see,  my  dear,  don't  you  see?  " 

"  See  what  ?    He  was  drunk.     He  knocked  me  down." 

It  was  hopeless.  I  got  her  into  bed  and  gave  her 
a  hot  drink  and  sat  by  her  table  a  little,  and  then  went 
off  to  my  room  to  think  it  over.  I  saw  at  least  one 
thing  very  clearly.  Jim's  rage,  his  sudden  fury,  proved 
that  he  still  cared  for  her.  Poor  little  Louise!  She 
still  possessed  something  that  he  prized  very  highly. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  257 

I  found  Binky  wandering  about  in  my  room.  He  was 
very  much  disturbed. 

"  Do  they  do  this  sort  of  thing  much  over  here  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  No.  At  least,  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  they  do. 
They're  not  all  like  Louise  and  Jim.  Nobody's  quite 
like  Jim." 

"  I  never  saw  any  one  the  least  like  her." 

"  Oh,  she's  not  unique  at  all !  " 

"  But,  my  dear,  it  beats  me  —  it  absolutely  beats 
me " 

"  What  beats  you  ?  " 

"  She  does.  She's  so  blasted  silly  —  she  doesn't  know 
anything !  She's  married.  She's  had  a  kid.  She  doesn't 
know  anything " 

"  I  know." 

When  he  left  me,  I  thought  a  long  time  about  Louise's 
chastity.  She  was  mother  of  a  child  and  as  chaste  as 
a  nun.  Of  course  I  ought  to  have  known  how  it  would 
turn  out. 

Mrs.  Bowers  had  once  probably  told  her  that  cham- 
pagne excited  a  man's  passions,  and  so  she  beautifully 
forgave  Jim  the  next  morning  when  he  promised  to 
be  teetotal  for  a  month,  and  she  let  him  walk  her 
up  Fifth  Avenue  to  Tiffany's  and  buy  her  an  emerald 
that  she  had  long  coveted.  When  I  saw  the  emerald, 
my  heart  sank,  but  Louise  took  me  aside  and  kissed 
me,  and  said  she  was  quite  happy  again  now  and  certain 
of  Jim's  love  for  her.  I  just  looked  at  her.  I  was 
speechless.  It  seemed  to  me  that  even  if  she  had  for- 
given Jim,  I  could  never  forgive  him.  He  had  struck 
her,  and  in  striking  her  he  had  struck  me,  and  I  had  lain 
awake  all  night  loathing  him  for  it,  and  now,  the  next 


258  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

day,  Louise  was  quite  happy  in  the  secure  possession  of 
his  love  and  a  new  emerald  ring. 

That  afternoon  Jim  and  I  had  the  first,  and  one  of 
the  very  few,  conversations,  which  need  ever  have 
excluded  his  wife.  He  came  into  the  sitting-room  of 
our  suite  an  hour  before  dinner.  Louise,  he  said,  was 
shopping.  He  was  ill  at  ease.  His  eyes  were  very 
dark,  and  at  times  they  looked  ashamed,  and  at  times 
they  looked  just  as  they  used  to  look  when  he  was  a 
little  boy  in  knickers.  He  smoked  several  cigarettes  in 
silence. 

"Well,  what  are  you  thinking?"  he  brought  out  at 
last. 

"  I  didn't  "know  you  were  that  kind  of  a  brute,"  I  said. 

He  kicked  a  footstool.  "  I  tell  you  Louise  is  a  dog- 
gone idiot,"  he  burst  out.  "  She  pretended  to  fall  down." 

"  Did  you  hit  her?  "  I  asked. 

"  No,  I  didn't !  She  fell  down.  She'-s  done  it  before. 

She  pretends '  There  was  an  agony  in  his  voice 

—  an  agony  of  shame  and  anger  and  disgust.  I  thought 
of  Louise's  emerald  ring  and  her  smile.  Perhaps  she 
was  pretending  to  me  too,  that  she  was  happy.  How 
could  I  tell !  I  felt  very  depressed. 

"  Women  make  me  sick,"  muttered  he,  walking  around 
the  room.  It  is  one  of  his  favourite  remarks.  I  didn't 
answer  him.  I  merely  sat  looking  at  him.  I  couldn't 
loathe  him.  I  had  a  strong  desire  to  take  him  in  my 
arms  and  comfort  him.  He  was  obviously  suffering  so 
much  —  more  than  any  one  else  —  and  I  foresaw  that 
he  was  going  to  suffer  more  and  always  more,  of  that 
horrid  pain  of  shame  and  remorse  and  disgust. 

"  Your  father  used  to  drink  too  much,"  I  said,  by  way 
of  relieving  the  tension.  We  both  knew  perfectly  well 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  259 

that  we  both  knew  he  wasn't  drunk,  but  I  gave  him  some- 
thing to  hide  behind  if  he  wanted. 

"  I  had  only  had  half  a  bottle,"  he  growled,  and  then 
I  was  very  glad  he  didn't  accept  my  invitation  to  hide. 
That  was  all  I  got  out  of  that  talk.  I  don't  think  we 
said  anything  more.  Do  you  call  that  not  playing  the 
game  by  Louise?  If  you  do  then  I'm  guilty,  and  if  I 
am  guilty  I  only  wish  to  God  I'd  got  a  little  more  out 
of  it. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

THE  weather  had  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  If  it  hadn't 
been  for  the  weather  there  would  have  been 
no  week-end  at  Otrago  Lake.  Phyllis  wouldn't 
have  fallen  off  the  iceboat,  and  things  with  Binky 
wouldn't  have  come  to  a  climax  so  soon,  or  perhaps  ever. 
Uncle  Archie,  that  is,  would  have  had  time  to  die  before 
they  did  come  to  a  climax,  and  Jim  and  I  should  never 
have  been  put  in  the  way  of  meriting  Louise's  displeas- 
ure, for  Louise  would  not  have  been  snowed  up  in  New 
Jersey.  It  is  all  a  network  of  accidents  hanging  on  a 
single  if,  but  granted  the  if,  which  was  the  blizzard, 
the  rest  was  inevitable.  I  mean  that  after  the  blizzard 
in  Iroquois,  which  was  the  same  blizzard  that  stopped 
the  trains  between  New  Jersey  and  New  York,  making 
Louise  a  prisoner,  it  was  inevitable  that  I  should  think 
of  a  week-end  in  the  country.  The  thermometer  stood 
at  a  steady  zero,  presaging  some  days  at  least  of  frost. 
The  air  had  that  extraordinary  clean-washed  feeling 
following  a  storm.  It  sparkled  and  crackled  with  the 
electricity  of  the  icy  sunlight,  and  the  whole  world  was 
marvellously  white  with  snow.  There  would  be  skating 
and  tobogganing  and  ice-boating  if  the  wind  had  swept 
enough  of  the  lake  clear  of  snow,  and  the  trees  would 
be  trimmed  with  a  lace  of  frost  and  icicles,  and  we 
could  keep  warm  inside  somehow,  with  large  enough 
log-fires  and  plenty  of  blankets.  Granted  the  blizzard 

260 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  261 

then,  the  week-end  was  inevitable ;  granted  the  week- 
end and  the  ice-boating,  it  was  inevitable  that  Phyllis 
should  stand  up  in  the  bow  while  they  were  going 
ninety  miles  an  hour,  and  should  fall  off.  Granted  that 
she  was  knocked  unconscious  for  the  moment,  it  was 
also  inevitable  that  Binky  should  give  himself  away, 
and  so  on. 

Poor  Binky !  He  had  never  been  on  such  a  week- 
end in  his  life.  Never  in  his  life  had  he  sought  pleasure 
in  such  acute  discomfort.  When  I  think  of  that  country 
house  built  of  wooden  shingles,  with  its  dozens  of  broad 
windows  rattling  in  the  night  wind,  its  wide  verandahs 
piled  high  with  snowdrifts  and  its  uncarpeted  floors,  I 
wonder  that  I  dared  take  Binky  there.  It  wasn't  at 
all  the  sort  of  thing  he  was  used  to.  Binky  doesn't 
mind  roughing  it  when  he's  got  to,  that  is,  when  he's 
with  his  regiment,  though  even  on  active  service  he 
manages  to  do  himself  pretty  well.  He  went  off  the 
other  day  with  a  servant,  two  horses  and  two  grooms, 
and  about  a  hundred  pounds  of  luggage  above  the  allowed 
amount,  most  of  which  consists  of  folding  baths  and 
flat-irons  for  pressing  clothes  and  food  from  Fortnum 
and  Mason's. 

Binky,  in  peace-time,  likes  things  done  in  a  special 
way.  He  likes  his  man  to  call  him  once  gently  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  then  again  at  seven-thirty,  after 
a  doze,  and  finally,  at  eight  he  likes  to  be  told  firmly 
that  his  bath  is  ready.  He  likes  to  come  in  from  hunting 
to  a  large  tea-table  by  a  small  but  pervasive  coal  fire. 
He  likes  to  wander  down  to  a  late  breakfast  and  eat 
his  porridge  with  his  head  out  the  window,  while  he 
talks  about  the  weather  to  one  of  the  keepers  or  gar- 
deners or  somebody.  He  likes  to  play  bridge  between 


262  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

midnight  and  three  in  the  morning,  with  hot  kippers 
and  coffee  between  rubbers.  He  likes  Women  in  the 
house  who  disappear  for  long  intervals,  and  who  don't 
mind  the  men  being  out  all  day  shooting.  His  perfect 
sixty-hour  week  is  divided  up  something  like  this: 
Twenty  hours  with  a  gun ;  twenty  hours,  i,  e.,  three  nights 
of  six  to  seven  hours  each,  of  sleep;  ten  hours  given 
over  to  eating  and  its  attendant  ceremonies  of  smoking 
and  talking,  and  ten  hours  given  to  ladies,  billiards,  and 
bridge. 

You  can  see  for  yourself  that  a  mid-winter  picnic 
at  Otrago  was  not  quite  planned  to  suit  him.  He  would 
never  have  stood  it  for  a  moment  if  he  hadn't  been 
very  much  in  love.  It  is  not  the  least  of  Phil's  tri- 
umphs that  she  made  that  week-end  seem  to  him  not 
only  bearable,  but  even  an  enjoyable  sort  of  an  esca- 
pade. If  it  hadn't  been  for  Phyllis  he  would  certainly 
have  called  it  one  of  my  mad  freaks,  and  now  from 
the  solid  English  comfort  of  this  place  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  was. 

I  wonder  that  I  dared  call  it  a  house-party,  and  I 
wonder  where  the  pleasure  came  in.  We  must  have  been 
possessed,  for,  after  all,  we  weren't  so  very  young;  and 
it  was  far  more  like  a  polar  expedition  than  a  pleasure 
picnic.  "  Green  Gables  "  is  a  nice  enough  house  in  the 
very  hot  months  of  summer.  My  father  built  it  about 
twenty  years  ago,  and  on  a  hot  day,  with  its  red-and-white 
striped  awnings  shading  the  already  shaded  verandahs 
and  the  willows  below  drooping  into  the  waters  of  the 
lake,  it  is  quite  charming;  but  it  was  not  built  for  a 
winter  camp.  It  hasn't  even  a  furnace.  We  wore 
sweaters  and  furs  at  dinner.  Our  noses  were  blue  with 
cold.  We  pulled  the  dining-room  table  almost  into  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  263 

fireplace,  and  Phyllis  and  Katherine  and  Sally  and  I, 
sat  on  the  fireside  with  the  men  opposite,  but  in  spite 
of  our  scorching  backs  against  a  blazing  fire  of  birch- 
logs  and  pine-cones,  our  breath  made  little  clouds  of 
steam,  and  Phyllis's  fingers  were  so  stiff  she  had  to 
let  Binky  cut  up  her  meat  for  her.  This  he  did  quite 
solemnly,  as  a  kind  of  religious  rite,  and  his  tender, 
serious  care  over  those  little  bits  of  meat  destined  for 
Phil's  mouth  was  the  more  noticeable  because  we  were 
so  very  uproarious.  I  don't  think  a  dozen  civilized 
grown  people  ever  made  so  much  noise.  It  all  seemed 
to  help  keep  us  warm.  We  ate  as  fast  as  we  could,  and 
after  dinner  we  played  blind-man's-buff  and  leap-frog, 
and  danced  for  so  long  at  a  time  as  Binky  could  manage 
to  play  the  piano.  I  can't  remember  Binky  ever  sacri- 
ficing himself  to  other  people's  fun  so  patiently  before. 
Doubtless,  when  Phil  came  to  him,  flushed  and  laughing, 
to  rub  his  poor  stiff  hands,  he  was  compensated.  Per- 
haps just  the  sight  of  her  romping  up  and  down  with 
her  hair  flying,  her  figure  in  its  white  sweater  and  white 
woollen  skirt  swaying,  was  enough  for  him.  I  confess 
I  have  never  seen  her  look  more  entrancing ;  she  seemed  to 
sparkle  and  glitter. 

It  was  on  Sunday  afternoon  that  she  fell  off  the 
iceboat  and  cut  her  bright,  beautiful  head  open,  and 
so  disastrously  destroyed  Binky's  all  but  perfect  and 
unshakable  self-possession.  I  had  contemplated  Binky's 
self-control  for  five  years,  and  except  for  that  one 
instance  when  I  refused  to  go  on  filling  the  role  of 
complete  wife  to  him,  I  had  never  seen  it  seriously 
shaken.  I  don't  call  his  little  self-indulgent  bursts  of 
temper  instances  of  his  losing  poise.  They  were  man- 
nerisms which  he  allowed  himself,  consciously,  and  even 


264          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

in  that  scene  of  ours,  he  had  himself  pretty  well  in 
hand.  But  on  this  occasion  he  was  done  for;  left 
quaking  and  exposed,  a  poor  suffering  human,  utterly 
self-forgetful  in  his  panic;  and  I  take  it  that  this  is 
the  highest  possible  tribute  he  could  ever  pay  to  any 
woman,  and  he  paid  it  to  Phyllis.  He  never  paid  it 
to  me,  and  I  am  certain  he  never  paid  it  to  Claire  Hobbes. 
She  never  gave  him  the  opportunity,  I  suppose.  It 
wouldn't  have  been  like  her  to  fall  off  her  horse,  for 
instance,  on  the  hunting-field,  and  frighten  him  into 
thinking  she  was  dead;  but  even  if  she  had,  I  doubt 
if  he  would  have  crumpled  up  over  it,  the  way  he  did 
over  Phil.  There  was  nothing  tender  and  helpless  about 
Claire.  If  she  had  fallen,  she  would  have  fallen  cursing 
her  luck,  and  he,  with  the  help  of  two  or  three  other 
men,  would  have  picked  her  up  and  poured  brandy 
through  her  lips,  and  she  would  have  opened  her  great 
cold  eyes  and  smiled  sarcastically  at  them  and  herself, 
and  then  he  would  have  taken  her  home  muttering: 
"  My  dear,  you  did  give  me  a  nasty  shock,  you  know." 
And  she  would  have  laughed  shortly  with  the  first 
inflowing  of  vitality,  and  have  very  successfully  pre- 
tended that  she  was  not  hurt.  And  all  the  time  he 
would  have  been  the  perfect  gentleman,  and  on  the  whole 
the  chivalrous  lover,  just  a  little  put  out  at  having  to 
miss  being  in  at  the  finish.  But  with  Phyllis  it  was 
different.  Phyllis,  in  spite  of  her  abundant  health  and 
incorrigible  appetite,  looks  a  tender,  soft  thing.  In  spite 
of  her  mocking  lips  and  flippant  matter-of-fact  talk,  her 
eyelashes  curl  appealingly,  and  her  eyes  drag  out  of 
men's  hearts  the  sentimental  desire  to  protect.  Phil  is 
no  clinging  vine.  She  doesn't  play  the  part  of  the  for- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  265 

lorn  beauty.  On  the  contrary  she  laughs  at  misfortune, 
is  reckless  of  her  charms,  and  this  very  habit  of  mind 
makes  her  personality  more  appealing.  One  marvels  at 
any  one  with  such  skin  and  such  dimples  not  wrapping 
them,  as  it  were,  in  cottoji-wool,  and  at  any  one  with 
such  eyelashes  not  using  them  for  languishing  purposes. 
Phyllis  doesn't.  Nevertheless,  it  had  been  given  her 
so  to  play  upon  Binky's  senses  and  his  fancy,  that  she 
had  almost  completely  destroyed  the  being  whom  it  had 
taken  his  ancestors  generations  to  bring  to  perfection. 
He  must,  weeks  before  that  Sunday,  have  ceased  to 
exist  as  we  know  him  —  Claire  Hobbes  and  I  —  though 
his  shell,  that  is,  his  looks  and  his  manners  and  his 
clothes  and  all  that  inherited  part  of  him,  covered  up 
the  devastation  of  soul  that  Phil  had  wrought  and  hid 
from  me,  till  that  hour,  the  awful  effect  she  had  had. 
I  don't  blame  Phyllis  for  enslaving  him.  She  quite 
honestly  believed  I  didn't  mind.  She  had  gone  to 
some  trouble,  I  remembered,  to  sound  me,  to  find  out 
whether  I  cared,  and  I  believe  if  she  had  thought  it 
would  hurt  me  very  much,  she  would  not  have  pursued 
him  and  the  ambitious  dream  he  embodied  for  her.  I 
had  never  actually  talked  to  her  about  Binky,  but  I 
can  quite  believe  that  I  gave  her  to  understand  "  we 
lived  apart,"  as  the  saying  is.  There  is  something  very 
straight  and  sporting  about  Phil  where  her  women 
friends  are  concerned.  With  men  she  is  the  unscru- 
pulous, the  alluring,  devastating,  and  lying  female;  but 
with  women  she  is  honourable.  Anyhow,  I  know  she 
must  have  thought  she  gathered  from  what  I  didn't  say, 
if  not  from  what  I  did  say,  that  I  wanted  to  get  rid  of 
Binky,  and  so  she  had  gone  ahead  with  that  deliberate 


266  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

scientific  process,  so  highly  developed  by  American  women 
and  so  fantastically  veiled  in  frivolity  and  seeming  inno- 
cence, of  reducing  the  male  to  helplessness. 

Pat  and  Jim  and  I  and  Katherine  Beaumont  had 
been  tobogganing.  The  road  from  Green  Gables  to  the 
village  dips  down  a  hill  about  a  mile  long.  We  coasted 
down  the  hill  and  were  drawn  up  it  again  by  one  of 
the  farm  horses.  We  had  been  enjoying  ourselves,  for 
the  air  was  clear  as  crystal,  and  the  world  very  beau- 
tifully white  under  a  dazzling  sun.  Pat,  especially,  had 
seemed  to  be  in  riotous  spirits,  and  as  we  walked  home 
through  the  grounds,  at  about  four  o'clock,  with  a  red 
winter  sun  low  behind  us,  touching  the  snow  with  a 
rosy,  coppery  glow,  he  and  Jim  snow-balled  each  other 
energetically,  yelling  and  snorting  and  prancing  about 
like  youngsters;  and  then,  suddenly,  as  we  rounded  a 
bend  in  the  drive  and  emerged  from  behind  a  clump  of 
firs,  we  saw  the  lake,  and  Phyllis  being  carried  up  from 
the  shore  by  Tommy  Dodge  and  Jerry,  and  I,  at  least, 
saw  Binky  staggering  round  them,  getting  in  the  way, 
wobbling  in  his  gait  and  making  crazy,  zig-zag  tracks 
in  the  snow,  quite  as  though  he  had  gone  mad  or  had 
had  a  stroke  that  had  deprived  him  of  the  control  of  his 
limbs. 

The  lawns  of  Green  Gables  are  about  fifty  feet  below 
the  house.  They  stretch  smooth  and  flat  to  the  edge 
of  the  lake,  rather  like  the  lawns  of  some  of  those  places 
on  the  Thames.  We  were,  you  understand,  on  the  drive- 
way, above  the  lawns,  on  a  level  with  the  front  door  of 
the  house,  and  we  looked  down  on  the  approaching 
group,  mystified,  for  an  instant,  long  enough  for  us 
to  take  in  the  whole  smooth  tablecloth  of  snow,  and  the 
iceboat's  sail  flapping  by  the  pier,  and  the  metallic  ex- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  267 

panse  of  the  frozen  lake,  and  Phil's  limp  figure  in  its 
turquoise-blue  clothes,  sagging  between  the  two  men; 
and  Binky  coming  on,  detached  from  them,  and  behaving 
so  strangely.  I  believe  it  was  Pat  who  dashed  down 
the  slope  first,  but  we  all  arrived  pretty  much  together, 
and  I  remember,  just  as  I  took  in  the  colour  of  Binky's 
face,  that  I  stumbled  into  a  deep  drift,  it  must  have  been 
over  a  sunken  flower-bed  or  some  such  hole  in  the 
lawn,  and  I  floundered  there  for  a  minute,  helplessly 
staring  up  at  Binky.  The  colour  of  Binky's  face  was 
a  queer  yellowish-green  against  all  that  whiteness,  and 
his  mouth  was  working  queerly,  and  he  was  trying  to 
say  things.  As  I  picked  myself  up,  I  remember  recog- 
nizing suddenly,  in  a  flash,  that  I  must  take  care  of 
Binky,  not  of  Phyllis;  the  others  would  do  that.  Pat 
had  already  gathered  her  in  his  arms  by  the  time  I 
had  straightened  up,  and  had  leaped  ahead  with  her, 
and  as  Binky  started  to  stagger  after  him,  I  caught 
hold  of  his  arm. 

He  turned  on  me  frantically,  fiercely. 

"  Help  me,"  I  said  very  distinctly.  That  stopped  him 
for  just  the  necessary  second,  but  his  eyes  were  silly  and 
his  mouth  still  working. 

"  She  fell.  She  fell  —  off  —  you  know  —  the  boat  - 
ninety  miles  an  hour."  His  words  were  furry  and  in- 
distinct. A  spring  seemed  to  have  snapped  inside  him. 
All  his  mechanism  seemed  to  have  gone  wrong.  He 
kept  moving  his  tongue  round  his  lips.  His  eyes  and 
his  lips  and  his  head  and  his  hands,  all  moved  errat- 
ically. I  took  his  arm  and  guided  him  toward  the 
house.  He  jerked  and  pulled  and  hung  heavily  by  turns, 
and  I  hated  him,  and  felt  sorry  for  him,  and  wanted 
to  laugh  at  him,  and  wanted  to  cry  over  him  with 


268  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

rage.  I  travelled  at  least  ten  miles  on  my  way  to  the 
house,  and  I  lived  through  ten  years  of  chagrin  and 
jealousy  and  rage,  and  by  the  time  we  got  there,  I  was 
for  the  most  part  just  sorry  for  him,  and  I  was  deter- 
mined to  cover  up  his  feelings,  which  he  was  so  pitiably 
displaying.  Also,  I  was  frightened,  frightened  at  the 
prospect  of  what  would  happen  if  others  saw  what  I  saw, 
particularly  if  Pat  saw. 

Binky  kept  muttering,  "  she  fell  —  God  —  she  fell 

"  and  kept  trying  to  hurry  on  while  I  dragged 

back.  It  probably  took  us  only  five  minutes  to  reach 
the  house,  but  by  the  time  we  got  into  the  lighted 
hall  the  others  had  disappeared.  There  was  no  one, 
and  nothing  but  a  blazing  fire  and  a  tea-table  set  for 
tea.  Feet  were  moving  overhead  hurriedly,  chairs  scrap- 
ing, Pat's  voice  was  heard  shouting  something,  and  at 
that  sound  Binky  made  for  the  stairs.  I  caught  his 
coat-tails,  or  perhaps  it  was  the  end  of  his  woollen  muffler, 
something,  anyhow. 

"  Binky,"  I  said  loudly  and  angrily,  "  sit  down  here. 
Don't  be  a  fool ! "  He  turned  vaguely.  "  Don't  be  a 
fool ! "  I  repeated.  His  eyelids  quavered  with  a  faint 
sign  of  intelligence.  I  shoved  him  into  a  chair,  and 
poured  him  out  a  stiff  peg  —  there  was,  fortunately,  an 
array  of  drinks  on  the  second  table  —  and  then  I  stood 
contemplating  him  as  he  drank  it. 

I  stood  contemplating  the  dream  of  my  romantic  youth, 
the  illusion  of  my  marriage,  and  the  distressingly  com- 
plicated problem  of  the  future.  And  Binky  drank  the 
whisky  meekly,  and  held  the  empty  glass  out  for  me 
to  take.  I  took  it,  and  as  I  took  it  our  eyes  met.  His 
were  crazy  no  longer.  They  held  a  perfectly  lucid  and 
honest  and  desperate  appeal.  Their  expression  was 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  269 

different  from  anything  I  had  ever  seen  in  them  before, 
and  it  renewed  the  ugly  pain  of  envy  in  my  heart. 
Binky  had  never  been  so  real  before.  Nothing  that  had 
had  to  do  with  me  had  ever  forced  him  to  recognize  the 
bare  realities  of  human  helplessness  and  loneliness  and 
fear  in  the  face  of  a  threatening  universe,  as  had  this 
accident  to  Phyllis.  It  almost  seemed  as  I  met  Binky's 
eyes,  that  I  saw  in  them  the  fear  of  an  angry  God,  whom 
he  had  slighted  and  snubbed  all  his  life,  the  admission 
of  an  eternal  truth  which  he  had  been  trained  so  carefully 
to  deny. 

I  couldn't  be  sorry  for  him  any  longer;  for  myself, 
yes,  but  not  for  him,  or  for  Phyllis.  They  had  some- 
thing which  I  had  been  dreaming  about  and  looking  for 
all  my  life.  I  felt  out  of  it.  I  felt  that  my  life  had 
been  a  dreamy,  commonplace  thing,  compared  to  that 
of  Binky  and  Phyllis.  That  they  had  only  just  come 
to  know  one  another  didn't  matter.  They  had,  it  seemed 
to  me,  the  whole  of  life  and  eternity  together,  and  I 
envied  them  the  whole  of  eternity. 

In  answer  to  his  look  I  went  upstairs,  motioning  to 
him  to  wait.  I  found  Phyllis  on  her  bead,  under  a  heap 
of  quilts,  her  eyes  open,  smiling  faintly,  and  faintly 
gurgling  with  amusement  over  Katherine,  who  was 
rubbing  her  feet,  and  Pat,  who  was  giving  her  something 
hot  with  a  spoon,  and  Tommy  Dodge,  who  was  preparing 
a  plaster  for  her  forehead,  and  Jerry,  who  was  blowing 
at  the  fire  in  the  grate.  I  stood  in  the  doorway  and 
watched  for  one  second  or  two,  and  strangely  enough 
it  dawned  on  me  then,  what  was  the  secret  of  Jerry's 
bachelordom.  He  was  in  love  with  her  too.  They  all 
were.  I  watched  his  back  as  he  fussed  over  the  fire, 
and  I  marvelled  at  Phil's  power  of  absorbing  men  like 


270  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Jerry  and  Tommy  Dodge,  at  her  faculty  for  standing 
between  them  and  other  women. 

"  Binky,"  I  said,  "  is  very  much  upset.  He  feels  re- 
sponsible." 

She  turned  toward  me  under  the  quilts  they  had 
piled  over  her,  and  said  a  little  weakly,  but  with  her 
usual  sweet,  gay  flippancy: 

"  Tell  the  poor  angel  I'm  fine."  And  then  she  gave 
one  of  her  little  chuckles,  and  opened  her  mouth  for  the 
spoonful  of  brandy  her  husband  was  holding  over  her. 
It  spilled. 

"  Oh  —  Pa-atrick  —  it's  gone  in  my  eye,"  she  whim- 
pered, laughing.  And  I  turned  and  went  downstairs. 

"  She  says  to  tell  you  she's  fine,  and  she  really  is  all 
right,"  I  said  to  Binky. 

He  was  sitting  where  I'd  left  him,  and  he  leaned 
forward  and  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  and  pres- 
ently a  long  shuddering  breath  shook  him,  and  then 
another.  One  wouldn't  quite  call  it  crying,  or  sobbing. 
He  made  a  tremendous  effort  to  stop  it,  that  queer 
working  of  his  lungs,  but  he  couldn't  seem  to  for  a 
moment.  I  turned  away  and  stood  looking  into  the  fire, 
and  listening  to  him.  It  seemed  a  very  long  time 
before  he  was  quite  quiet,  then  I  said,  without  turning 
round : 

"  You  must  be  careful  of  Pat."  He  gave  a  sort  of 
grunt.  "  I  think,"  I  went  on,  after  a  little,  "  that  it  would 
be  a  good  plan  for  you  to  go  down  to  the  village  for  the 
doctor." 

"  Yes,  that's  a  good  egg,"  he  assented. 

I  turned  then,  intending  to  go  up  and  suggest  this, 
and  I  started  to  call  as  I  turned,  to  Pat  or  some  one, 
when  I  looked  up  and  saw  Pat  standing  at  the  top  of 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  271 

the  stairs  in  the  gallery,  looking  down  at  us.  He  had 
a  cup  in  one  hand  and  a  spoon  in  the  other.  It  was 
impossible  to  judge  how  long  he'd  been  there,  but  he 
was  standing  perfectly  still,  and  staring  down  at  Binky 
with  a  curious,  a  very  curious,  look  on  his  face,  and  I 
had  the  impression  that  he  was  very  uncomfortably 
hampered  by  having  that  cup  and  spoon  in  his  hands. 

"Oh,  Pat,  I  was  just  suggesting  that  Binky  should 
go  for  the  doctor !  "  I  don't  know  what  my  voice  sounded 
like. 

"  It's  not  necessary,"  he  rejoined,  calmly  enough. 

"  It's  just  as  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side,"  I  argued. 
"  Please  let  me." 

"  All  right.  Do  as  you  like."  He  turned  back  along 
the  gallery  and  went  into  the  bedroom  again,  the  boards' 
creaking  under  him.  Had  he  crept  out  on  purpose,  care- 
fully silent,  to  watch  Binky,  or  had  we  both  been  so 
intent  on  our  thoughts  as  not  to  notice  the  noise  of  his 
feet? 

"  You'd  better  go  round  to  the  stables  and  order  the 
sleigh  yourself,"  I  suggested. 

"  Right  oh  !  "  said  Binky,  getting  up.  We  stood  looking 
at  one  another.  We  said  nothing.  And  as  our  eyes 
continued  to  meet,  that  look  seemed  to  include  many 
things,  among  them  a  leave-taking.  It  was  as  though  I 
said  "  Good-bye  "  to  Binky  then,  once  and  for  all,  as  I 
let  him  out  into  the  cold. 

I  realized  it  when  he  had  gone.  I  would  see  him 
through.  If  I  could  make  it  possible,  he  should  have 
Phyllis,  he  should  have  her  soon,  but  whatever  happened, 
he  and  I  would  be  intimate  no  longer.  We  would  meet 
differently  and  more  easily  than  heretofore,  because  it 
was  all  finished,  the  effort,  between  us. 


CHAPTER  Six 

IT  was  curious,  lying  awake  during  the  night,  with 
the  winter  wind  shaking  that  flimsy  house  and 
Binky  in  the  bed  next  to  me  under  his  heap  of 
blankets  and  rugs,  staring  at  the  ceiling,  perfectly  still, 
hour  after  hour.  It  seemed  incredible  that  I  had  ever 
belonged  to  him.  He  was  a  stranger,  and  his  presence 
there  was  an  accident.  The  situation  reminded  me  of 
some  old  story  about  two  solitary  travellers  lost  in  a 
storm,  who  were  shoved  grotesquely  into  the  same  bed- 
room by  a  ruthless  landlord.  The  disorder  of  the  room 
and  its  discomfort  made  it  seem  more  like  a  half-way 
house  on  a  mountain  road  than  like  a  dwelling.  It  was 
so  cold,  so  bare,  so  utterly  incompetent  as  a  room.  My 
father  hadn't  lived  in  the  house  for  years,  and  this  room, 
which  had  once  been  my  mother's,  all  white  furniture 
and  pretty  cretonne,  was  now  denuded.  We  each  had 
a  camp-bed.  There  was  an  odd  old  dressing-table  and 
a  chest  of  drawers,  and  our  bags  lay  open  on  the  bare 
floor.  Powdery  snow  filtered  through  the  loose  case- 
ments of  the  windows.  Bits  of  tissue-paper,  which  had 
wrapped  up  my  clothes,  fluttered  in  the  draughts  that 
blew  under  the  doors.  I  lay  under  two  blankets  and 
a  carriage-rug  and  a  fur  coat,  my  feet  drawn  up  under 
me  to  keep  warm.  The  sheet,  farther  down,  was  chilly. 
I  dared  not  stretch  out  or  move,  and  the  weight  of  my 
coverings  was  heavy.  I  had  a  ridiculous  vision  of  being 

272 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  273 

snowed-up  there  for  ever,  with  this  man  who  wanted  to 
get  away  to  meet  his  beloved. 

My  maid  had  made  a  large  fire  in  the  fireplace  with 
coal  from  the  kitchen  as  well  as  wood.  It  gasped  and 
flared  in  fitful  draughts  that  came  down  the  shallow 
chimney.  It  flung  grotesque  shadows  on  the  ceiling  and 
walls,  and  flickered  on  some  old  prints  in  oval  frames,  that 
I  remembered  liking  very  much  as  a  child. 

The  passage  of  relentless  time,  which  had  destroyed 
the  life  of  this  room  and  turned  me  from  a  vigorous 
child  into  a  futile  adult,  appeared  to  me  as  an  embodied 
enemy.  I  perceived  that  experience  tears  one  to  pieces 
bit  by  bit.  It  seemed  unfair  that  inanimate  things  should 
survive  so  much  longer  than  human  beings.  The  old 
pictures  of  sweet  women  with  parted  hair  and  children 
folded  in  their  arms,  would  outlast  all  the  passions  and 
affections  of  our  family,  who  had  lived  in  that  house  and 
hung  them  there  on  the  wall. 

I  thought  of  all  the  places  on  the  earth  where  I  had 
lived,  and  how  they  had  left  their  marks  on  me,  but 
had  received  none  from  me  in  return.  There  was  my 
bungalow  in  India,  inhabited  now  by  other  people  as 
insignificant  as  ourselves.  It  gave  me  a  despairing  feel- 
ing of  waste  to  think  that  I  should  never  go  back  there. 
It  was  as  though  I  had  sunk  large  sums  of  money  in 
various  enterprises  that  had  failed.  All  the  energy  I 
had  put  into  the  Anglo-Indian  menage,  all  the  love  I 
had  lavished  on  that  dwelling  of  my  husband's,  had  gone. 
I  was  the  poorer  for  it.  I  had  nothing  to  show  for 
it.  The  same  with  this  room.  What  had  become  of 
my  mother's  kisses  and  her  smiles,  and  the  tears  she  had 
shed  there?  The  atmosphere  of  it  was  no  richer  for  the 
great  number  of  precious  hours  she  had  spent  there, 


274  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

teaching  us  to  read,  healing  our  bruises,  spending  herself. 
The  room  was  indifferent.  It  held  no  memories.  It  had 
become  ugly,  and  yet  it  remained  a  useless  erection, 
sticking  up  into  the  air,  its  walls  protesting  somewhat 
vainly  against  time  and  space  and  the  wind. 

Now  Binky  and  I  were  there  pouring  into  the  in- 
sensible place  all  the  bewilderment  and  anguish  and  hope 
and  regret  of  our  weak  souls.  Only  the  wind  seemed 
akin  to  our  humanity.  It  made  a  noise  of  whining  and 
whistling,  of  spasmodic  shrieking  and  little  whimpers. 
I  felt  that  the  wind  was  talking  for  us  who  were  dumb. 
It  was  full  of  aimless  complaint  and  futile  regret  and 
silly  apology.  It  threatened  hysteria,  and  then  fell  into 
ingratiating  gibberish. 

At  about  three  o'clock  I  got  up  to  replenish  the  fire. 

"  My  dear,  let  me."  His  voice  startled  me,  sounding 
as  it  did  just  like  his  voice.  I  crawled  back  to  bed  and 
watched  him  shovel  on  coal.  He  had  to  fuss  over  the 
fire  for  some  time,  and  he  knelt  there  shivering  in  his 
dressing-gown  with  his  back  to  me,  and  I  thought  sud- 
denly of  how  courteously  and  with  what  delicacy  he  would 
take  care  of  Phyllis.  And  immediately  I  remembered 
the  whole  of  our  life  together,  and  knew  that  he  had 
always  shown  courtesy  and  delicacy  to  me. 

"  There,  I  guess  that'll  last  for  a  bit ! "  He  climbed 
back  into  his  bed.  The  wind  took  up  the  conversation 
again. 

I  began  to  hate  the  wind's  talk.  Binky's  interposition 
had  brought  everything  into  focus  prosaically.  The  wind 
no  longer  expressed  what  I  was  willing  to  feel.  It  inter- 
fered with  my  thoughts.  I  fastened  my  eyes  on  Binky's 
trousers  that  hung  on  a  peg  by  the  door.  The  braces 
hung  loosely  down  in  two  irregular  loops.  The  legs  of 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  275 

them  dangled  crooked.  I  wanted  to  be  quiet,  and  plan 
what  I  should  do,  but  that  whining,  useless  lament  outside 
kept  on  and  on. 

Would  it  be  possible  to  undo  my  marriage  and  begin 
again?  I  was  twenty-five  years  old!  It  seemed  to  me 
that  I  had  enough  vitality  to  begin  the  business  of  life 
again.  I  would  live  with  my  father.  We  would  take 
up  our  old  occupations,  resume  our  old  habits.  He  would 
provide  a  sufficient  reason  for  living  —  even  though 
Binky  asked  me  to  let  him  go,  and  the  children  as 
well.  It  was  impossible  to  think  clearly  about  losing 
Arch  and  Humpy.  Their  round,  firm  legs,  their  bushy 
heads,  their  boisterous  voices,  confused  me.  I  found 
myself  erratically  wondering  if  they  needed  new  clothes. 
They  would  soon  be  too  big  for  tunics  and  knickers.  In 
a  year  or  two  they  would  have  to  go  to  school.  The 
English  system  demanded  that  they  go  away  from  me. 
Binky  would  be  shocked  if  I  implored  him  to  let  them 
stay  at  home  until  they  were  a  little  bigger,  a  little 
more  substantial.  How  could  babies  six  years  old  stand 
up  against  the  pushing  crowd  of  the  world?  I  had  for- 
gotten, for  the  moment,  that  Binky  would  take  them  with 
him  across  the  Atlantic,  and  that  I  was  to  stay  in  Iro- 
quois. 

I  flung  it  all,  with  a  violent  effort  of  will,  out  of  my 
mind,  and  began  to  count  sheep  going  through  a  gate. 
I  counted  three  hundred  and  sixty-five.  They  scrambled 
about,  bumping  into  each  other,  grubby,  senseless  things, 
and  then  I  perceived  that  it  was  growing  light  in  the 
room.  There  was  a  drift  of  snow  on  the  floor  under 
the  windows,  but  it  seemed  to  have  stopped  snowing  now. 
The  light  was  clear  with  a  promise  of  a  sun  about  to 
rise  in  a  cloudless  sky.  I  had  not  much  more  time  in 


276          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

which  to  decide  what  I  was  going  to  do.  Suddenly  Binky 
spoke.  He  asked  that  same  question.  He  took  every- 
thing between  us  for  granted,  all  the  facts,  I  mean,  of 
our  mutual  understanding. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  You'd  like  to  —  to  get  rid  of  me,  I  suppose?  " 

I  looked  at  it.  I  felt  unutterably  weary  at  the  sight 
of  it. 

"  It  doesn't  matter  what  I'd  like,"  I  said,  after  a 
little. 

"  It's  for  you  to  decide."  He  moved  and  raised 
himself  on  his  elbow,  and  I  knew  he  was  looking  at  me 
now. 

"  No.  You  see,  you  want  something.  I  don't  think 
I  want  anything.  There's  nothing  I  can  want !  "  I  was 
thinking  of  Jim.  Jim  hadn't  come  into  it  before.  "  Ex- 
cept the  children,"  I  added,  and  then  that  fearful  tired- 
ness seemed  to  turn  me  quite  cold,  dreadfully  cold. 

The  silence  now  was  complete,  except  for  the  little 
sounds  of  the  fire  and  the  clock  and  footsteps  moving 
somewhere.  The  wind  had  died  down.  Presently  a 
shaft  of  sunlight  shot  into  the  room.  I  closed  my  eyes 
and  heard  him  get  out  of  bed,  and  move  about  the  room 
gathering  up  towels  and  soap  and  clothes.  He  pulled  up 
the  blinds  and  threw  more  wood  on  the  fire.  At  the  door 
he  paused. 

"  I  leave  it  to  you,"  he  said,  before  he  went  out  into 
the  hall. 

Pat  had  to  leave  by  an  early  train,  and  all  the  rest 
went  with  him  except  Phyllis  and  Binky  and  Jim  and 
myself.  I  was  to  see  that  Phyllis  got  comfortably  home. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  277 

The  doctor  said,  of  course,  that  she  had  had  a  wonder- 
ful escape,  but  would  feel  the  effect  of  the  shock  for 
some  days.  We  left  Otrago  at  eleven  o'clock,  driving 
in  a  sleigh  to  the  station.  My  father's  private  car  was 
attached  to  the  train,  and  I  arranged  Phyllis  carefully 
on  a  couch  with  pillows  and  rugs  and  a  hot-water  bottle. 

"  Good  heavens,  my  dear,  I'm  all  right ! "  she  kept 
insisting.  "  I'm  fine !  I  don't  feel  badly  a  bit."  She 
lay  languidly  smiling  and  playing  cat's  cradle  with  Jim. 
Binky  sat  watching  them. 

"  You're  a  clumsy  thing,  Jim,  my  boy ! "  she  gurgled, 
pulling  the  string  away  from  him.  "  But  you've  got  the 
prettiest  baby  eyes.  Hasn't  he,  Joan?" 

"  Go  on,  you've  seen  my  eyes  before,"  muttered  Jim, 
flushing. 

"  But  I  never  noticed  how  curly  your  eyelashes  are. 
Do  you  remember  when  Pat  gave  you  a  black  eye  ?  " 

"When  was  that?"  put  in  Binky. 

"  That  was  when  Pat  lived  over  a  saloon  in  Grant 
Street,"  she  laughed.  "  Poor  old  Pat !  He  used  to 
frighten  us  out  of  our  wits.  Our  mothers  wouldn't  let 
us  play  with  him.  Jim  used  to  be  very  good  with  his  fists 
—  the  best  fighter  in  the  '  Hot  Push.' " 

"  What  was  the  '  Hot  Push  '  ?  "  asked  Binky. 

"  It  was  a  youthful  American  version  of  the  Turf 
Club."  She  gurgled  entrancingly  through  half-shut  eyes. 
"  Give  me  a  cigarette,  there's  a  dear !  "  Binky  obeyed. 

Jim  and  I  went  to  the  rear-end  of  the  car,  and  sat 
watching  the  track  slide  away  from  under  the  train. 
Here  and  there  through  the  snowy  country,  a  grey, 
wooden  farm-house  lifted  its  shingled  roof  out  of  the 
snowdrifts.  An  occasional  waggon  struggled  along  a 


278  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

deep-rutted  road.  We  talked  very  little.  It  didn't  seem 
worth  while  trying  to  make-believe,  and  I  hadn't  the 
courage  to  find  out  how  much  he  perceived. 

It  was  a  two  hours'  journey.  We  got  to  the  Central 
Station  at  one.  A  thaw  had  set  in,  and  the  languor 
of  the  weather  seemed  to  me  all  of  a  piece  with  my 
own  languor.  The  snow  was  already  grimy,  and  was 
turning  to  slush.  Water  dripped  from  every  roof  and 
gable,  and  ran  gurgling  in  the  gutters.  What  was  the 
use  of  anything,  I  thought,  if  the  glory  of  a  blizzard  could 
dissolve  into  mud  in  two  days?  The  softness  of  the  air, 
a  travesty  of  spring,  made  me  feel  sick. 

Phil's  car  and  mine  were  waiting  for  us.  She  nestled 
back  into  hers,  and  looked  out  at  me  from  her  dark 
furs,  her  snowy  face  wistfully  tired.  There  was  a  patch 
of  surgeon's  plaster  showing  under  her  pale  hair,  but 
her  face  was  as  lovely  as  the  face  of  a  frail  and  weary 
goddess. 

"  Binky  will  take  you  home,"  I  said. 

She  demurred.  "  I'm  all  right,  Johnny,  darling,  I  am 
really.  He  needn't  bother." 

"  He  may  as  well,"  I  insisted.  "  Jim  will  come  with 
me.  I'll  drop  him  at  the  club."  At  that  Phyllis  very 
slightly  raised  her  eyebrows  and  smiled  a  vulgar  little 
meaning  smile.  I  turned  away  quickly.  She  seemed  to 
me,  of  a  sudden,  utterly  worthless  and  coarse.  Her  smile 
had  said  as  plainly  as  words,  that  in  that  case  she  wouldn't 
worry  about  me  any  more.  I  had  not  been  completely 
miserable  until  that  moment. 

"  She's  not  worth  it,"  I  said  to  myself  savagely.  I 
had  wanted  to  believe  that  she  was  worth  Binky's  atten- 
tions. It  was  humiliating  to  me,  in  the  extreme,  to  hand 
him  over  to  a  vulgar  creature.  I  marvelled  at  his  taste, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  279 

that  was  so  fastidious  and  sure,  among  values  that  he 
was  accustomed  to.  I  couldn't  put  it  all  down  to  her 
strangeness  and  newness.  He  must  have  seen  evidences 
of  her  poverty  of  mind,  but  then,  after  all,  she  had 
dazzled  me  for  years. 

Jim  must  have  known  by  that  time,  if  not  before,  what 
it  was  all  about.  I  was  conscious  as  we  drove  through 
the  crowded,  clanging,  slippery  streets,  that  he,  too,  was 
nervous  and  tired. 

"  Come  and  have  lunch  with  me,"  he  said  abruptly. 

"  No,  thanks,  I  must  get  home." 

"  Nonsense,  there's  no  one  at  home  for  you  to  hurry 
back  to." 

"  I  don't  want  to,  Jim." 

"  Let  me  come  home  to  lunch  with  you,  then." 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 

"  I  don't  want  you  to.  I'll  lunch  with  the  children. 
I'm  very  tired." 

I  saw,  by  his  reflection  in  the  glass  of  the  motor,  that 
he  was  unhappy.  He  didn't  know  what  to  do  for  me. 
There  was  nothing  he  could  do  for  me.  He  looked  so 
sweet  and  so  perplexed  that  I  laughed,  but  when  I  put 
him  down  at  the  club,  I  kept  him  for  a  moment  standing 
there  at  the  window  of  the  car.  I  couldn't  bear  to 
let  him  go.  For  that  one  moment  I  was  very  near 
throwing  it  all  over.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  I  left 
him  there  and  went  home  alone,  I  should  be  alone  for 
ever.  I  thought  of  the  other  two  rolling  smoothly  back 
together,  cosy  and  happy,  with  all  the  wonder  and  ro- 
mance of  their  discovery ;  and  I  held  on  to  Jim. 

"Jim,"  I  said,  "Jim!"  He  had  his  hand  on  the 
ledge  of  the  open  window.  I  grabbed  it.  "  Jim,"  I 


280  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

said  again.  I  couldn't  bring  out  another  word.  His 
face  grew  dark  in  that  strange  way,  expressive  of  a 
tumult  inside  him,  his  dear,  chubby,  absurd  face ;  I  clung 
to  the  sight  of  it.  The  expression  in  his  eyes  seemed 
to  hold  for  me  all  the  sweetness  and  all  the  idealism 
of  our  youth.  I  felt  that  I  was  going  to  move  away 
from  him  up  Jefferson  Drive,  straight  into  a  hopeless 
middle-age. 

"  Only  tell  me  what  to  do,"  he  muttered. 

"  Nothing.  There's  nothing."  I  flung  myself  back 
against  the  cushions,  and  he,  after  a  moment's  hesitation, 
turned  away  into  the  club. 

I  lunched  with  Arch  and  Humpy.  They  were  noisily 
glad  to  see  me.  They  choked  me  with  hugs.  Their 
charm  tortured  me.  My  father  didn't  come  up.  I  went 
up  to  his  room  and  sat  down  in  his  chair  to  wait.  I 
had  never  been  so  tired  in  my  life.  I  felt  that  if  he 
didn't  come  home  soon  I  should  die  of  tiredness.  After 
a  time  I  noticed  that  tears  were  squeezing  themselves 
under  my  closed  eyelids.  There  was  nothing  in  it  for 
me,  any  way  you  looked  at  it.  My  mind  kept  revolving 
about  that  fact  dizzily,  and  for  the  rest  all  my  energy 
was  taken  up  in  not  thinking  of  Binky  and  Phyllis. 
They  were  at  home  together  now.  Pat  was  down  town. 
I  tried  very  hard  not  to  visualize  them  together,  not  to 
wonder  what  they  were  saying  to  one  another.  I  la- 
boured and  toiled  with  my  brain  to  keep  them  off  and 
shut  them  out,  but  I  heard  them  talking  about  me. 
They  referred  to  me  very  kindly  and  considerately.  They 
admitted  my  good  points.  They  surmised,  indeed,  they 
felt  sure  that  I  should  behave  well.  Good  God!  All 
the  time  they  so  tactfully  alluded  to  me,  they  were  hating 
me  for  being  there. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  281 

It  was  dark  in  my  father's  room  when  he  came  in. 

"  Joan !  "  he  exclaimed,  as  he  turned  on  the  light. 

"  Yes,  I've  been  waiting  for  you." 

I  remember  quite  distinctly  the  clothes  he  had  on, 
a  greyish-brown  tweed  suit.  His  face  was  reddened 
by  the  cold,  and  his  hair  rather  rumpled.  Evidently  in 
spite  of  the  thaw  of  midday  he  had  been  to  the  Winter 
Club  for  the  curling.  He  stood  smiling  and  chafing  his 
cold  hands. 

"  Yes,  I've  been  waiting  for  you,"  I  said. 

He  came  quickly  toward  me,  and  as  I  looked  up  at 
his  tall  figure,  his  white  hair,  his  deep  eyes  under 
their  fierce  eyebrows,  I  stiffened  under  the  terrible  surge 
of  temptation  to  throw  myself  into  his  arms  and  blurt 
it  all  out. 

"  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you,"  I  said,  biting  off  my  words 
in  a  panic.  It  was  so  very  dangerous.  I  was  so  very 
near  breaking  down.  I  had  to  tell  him  something,  just 
enough  to  explain  my  conduct,  not  enough  to  let  him 
know  the  truth.  I  got  up  and  pushed  him  into  the  chair, 
and  sat  on  the  arm  of  it  a  little  behind  him,  so  that  he 
couldn't  see  me. 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I'm  not  going  back  to  London 
with  Binky." 

"  Is  he  going  back  ?  " 

"  Yes,  of  course,  sometime  soon.  I  mean  that  I'm 
not  going  back  with  him  at  all." 

He  gave  an  exclamation  and  tried  to  move  round  in 
his  chair,  but  I  held  him  with  my  arms  round  his  neck, 
and  talked  over  his  head. 

"  Sit  still,  dear,  let  me  tell  you."  I  kissed  the  top 
of  his  head  to  gain  time.  "  I  am  going  to  stay  with 
you  always.  I'm  not  going  back.  You  are  my  father, 


282          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

and  you  must  keep  me  here.  Binky  and  I  —  are  not 
going  to  live  together  any  more." 

I  had  not  realized  what  a  shock  it  would  be  to  him; 
had  not  at  all  anticipated  how  he  would  take  it.  It 
seemed  utterly  strange  to  me  that  I  should  call  down 
his  anger  on  me  just  then,  of  all  times,  when  I  was 
so  very  tired.  He  had  been  angry  with  me  so  seldom 
in  my  lifetime.  I  had  forgotten  what  his  anger  was 
like. 

It  seems  strange  to  me  now  that  I  should  have  been 
so  stupid  about  my  father.  He  was  an  American.  I 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  that.  I  seemed  to  have  for- 
gotten the  passion  with  which  Americans  believe  in  moral 
laws  and  ideals.  But  that  was  only  a  part  of  it.  I 
had  never  realized  what  it  had  cost  him  to  give  me  to 
Binky.  He  had  almost  completely  effaced  himself  during 
the  days  before  my  marriage.  He  had  been  there  solely 
as  a  support,  and  I  had  taken  his  support  as  a  matter 
of  course.  I  had  taken  it  lightly,  in  feverish  happiness, 
quite  unaware  of  the  enormity  of  his  sacrifice.  He 
had  never  let  me  see  how  lonely  he  was  when  I  left 
him,  but  I  saw  it  all  now.  I  saw  him  going  back  to 
Iroquois  without  me,  and  settling  down  there  with  Jerry 
to  the  contemplation  of  my  life  and  my  happiness  and 
my  future.  I  saw  him  playing  countless  solitary  games 
of  patience  in  the  long  evenings,  while  he  thought  about 
me  and  my  husband  and  my  children.  He  had  sunk 
far  more  of  the  capital  of  his  affections  and  his  vitality 
in  my  venture,  than  I  had  ever  put  into  anything.  He 
had  speculated  on  a  vast  scale  in  my  enterprise,  and 
at  my  request,  and  with  only  my  guarantee.  It  was 
as  though  he  had  been  ruined  by  my  treachery.  I  had 
taken  the  riches  of  his  heart  and  had  embezzled  them. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  283 

He  was  on  his  feet  now,  and  his  appearance  was 
terrible.  His  passionate  anger  was  commensurate  with 
his  love  for  me  and  his  hope.  I  was  frightened. 

"  How  dare  you  talk  so  lightly  of  leaving  your  hus- 
band ? "  he  thundered.  He  seemed  to  grow  enormously 
tall.  He  seemed  of  a  tremendous  weight,  and  I  felt  that 
if  he  fell  on  me  I  should  be  crushed. 

"  Father,"  I  said,  "  father !  "  I  held  out  my  hands 
to  him. 

He  ignored  them.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  all  this  ? 
Have  you  been  deceiving  me?  You  told  me  just  the 

other  day "  He  glared.  His  eyes  were  on  fire, 

and  I  cowered  under  his  glare.  I  felt  guilty.  I  knew 
that  I  was  guilty. 

"  Yes,  I've  been  deceiving  you."  The  fact  that  I  had 
deceived  him  from  the  beginning,  when  Binky  first  made 
love  to  me,  suddenly  became  of  immense  importance,  a 
final  and  tremendous  condemnation. 

"  How  long  has  this  been  going  on?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  Has  he  been  untrue  to  you  ?  " 

"  No  —  not  exactly." 

At  that  he  burst  out  again.  "  Good  God !  Not  exactly 
—  not  exactly  untrue !  " 

I  perceived  how  terribly  different  were  the  standards 
of  different  men.  I  sat  aghast  at  this  recognition  of  my 
father's  exact  and  splendid  emphasis.  Loyalty  was  an 
absolute  thing.  I  saw  this  strangely. 

He  was  waiting  for  me  to  go  on,  and  I  fumbled  for 
words. 

*'  He  doesn't  care  for  me  now,  and  I  don't  care  for 
him  as  I  used  to.  That's  all."  I  shuddered  to  find 
myself  lying  again  to  him.  "  You  see,  I  can't  live  with 


284          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

him  if  I  don't  love  him.  How  can  I  live  with  him 
if  I  don't  love  him?  My  dear  —  oh,  my  dear  —  I  am 
very  unhappy.  Don't  be  so  terribly  —  hard.  Don't  — 
I  —  I  —  can't  bear  it.  I  am  so  very  lonely.  I  am  so 
tired."  I  broke  down  then.  I  slid  into  the  chair  and 
shook  violently.  It  was  no  good  trying  to  control  my- 
self. 

His  anger  did  not  subside  at  once.  He  turned  away 
from  me  with  a  groan.  It  seemed  to  me  a  long  time 
before  he  came  to  me  and  lifted  me  and  took  me  in  his 
arms. 

"  My  child,  my  child ! "  he  muttered  then,  terribly 
moved,  terribly  shaken. 

"  I  will  tell  you  everything,"  I  said  at  last.  "  I  had 
better  tell  you  everything." 

And  so  I  told  him  some  of  the  things,  everything 
that  I  could  remember  and  make  clear  to  him  about 
Binky  and  myself.  I  told  him  how,  when  I  learned 
about  Binky's  other  son,  I  had  found  it  impossible  to 
go  on  as  before.  And  I  told  him  how  we  had  grown 
more  and  more  estranged  since  then,  but  I  didn't  tell 
him  about  Binky  and  Phyllis.  I  couldn't.  It  was  im- 
possible to  name  them  to  him,  together,  and  besides  that 
wasn't,  it  seemed  to  me,  my  business. 

When  I  had  finished  he  sat  still,  so  still  that  I  was 
as  frightened  by  his  silence  as  by  his  thunder.  He 
looked  sad  and  old,  and  a  kind  of  feebleness  seemed  to 
have  come  upon  him.  I  had  always  thought  of  him  as 
magnificently  strong  —  and  I  knew  then  that  he  was 
broken,  and  that  I  had  done  it.  Something  had  snapped 
within  him,  and  he  would  grow  old  now.  My  under- 
standing of  what  was  in  his  mind  was  the  worst  of  all 
the  things  that  had  come  to  me. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  285 

"  After  your  mother  died,  when  you  were  still  a  child, 
I  was  afraid  for  you,"  he  said  at  last.  "But" — he 
hesitated  as  though  the  words  hurt  him  — "  I  trusted  your 
taste."  It  was  a  curious  thing  for  him  to  say.  He 
was  sinking  in  his  own  furious  disappointment  in  the 
greater  sense  of  my  tragedy.  He  was  so  fine,  so  great. 
He  would  never  reproach  me.  I  saw  that.  I  was  his 
own,  and  my  doom  was  his  own,  for  he  regarded  it 
as  my  doom.  He  knew  that  I  had  ruined  my  life.  He 
knew  what  I  had  missed,  for  I  had  missed  what  he  had 
had. 

"  Death,"  he  went  on,  "  is  nothing.  I  have  not  lost 
your  mother  in  death." 

"  I  know  that,"  I  whispered,  watching  his  face  in  my 
despair. 

I  learned,  too,  in  that  hour  from  him  what  I  had 
missed.  I  saw  the  supreme  beauty  of  loyalty,  the  costly 
beauty  of  faithfulness. 

We  sat  silent  together,  clinging  together  until  Edward 
knocked  on  the  door  and  said  that  dinner  was  served. 
I  remembered  then  where  Binky  had  gone.  Had  he 
come  back,  I  wondered?  Surely  he  must  have  come  in 
long  ago!  Pat  would  have  come  home.  I  shuddered 
with  disgust.  My  father's  presence  made  that  muddle 
disgusting  to  me. 

He  stopped  me  as  I  was  leaving  him,  and  a  strange 
severity  came  into  his  voice  again. 

"  You  must  see  it  through,  Joan." 

"  See  it  through  ?  "  I  echoed. 

"  You  can't  get  out  of  it.  It's  yours.  He  is  yours. 
You  chose  him." 

"  But "  I  stammered.     He  cut  me  short. 

"  You  must "    And  then  as  I  slunk  away  he  added 


286          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to  my  back :  "  You  will,  in  time,  come  to  like  him  again, 
if  you  see  it  through." 

How  did  he  know?  I  felt  at  the  time  that  he  was 
completely  at  sea.  I  could  think  only  of  Binky  and 
Phyllis,  and  their  hatred  and  their  pleasure.  Wasn't 
it  strange  that  he  saw  through  and  beyond  it  all?  I 
was  still  blinded  by  all  the  cheap  things  I  had  gathered 
out  of  life,  the  cheap  pleasures  and  excitement  and  sen- 
sations and  vanities  I  had  so  greedily  purchased.  I 
was  still  to  go  on  dealing  in  this  rubbish,  buying  it 
more  and  more  feverishly.  The  arresting  vision  opened 
to  me  by  my  father  wasn't  enough  to  last  me  very 
long.  He  hadn't  succeeded  in  really  pulling  me  out  of 
the  muddle.  His  trust  was,  after  all,  a  mistake,  and 
yet  what  he  prophesied  has  come  true  —  only  not  as 
he  hoped.  He  didn't  foresee  the  war.  It  took  the  war 
to  bring  about  what  he  said.  It's  curious,  his  knowing 
ahead  like  that. 

I  found  Binky  downstairs  in  the  hall.  He  was  not 
dressed  for  dinner.  He  stood  there  with  a  telegram 
in  his  hand,  and  as  I  came  down  he  looked  at  me  like 
a  person  struggling  to  rouse  himself  out  of  a  horrid 
sleep. 

"  Uncle  Archie  is  dead,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

ONE  had  no  right,  I  suppose,  to  expect  Phyllis 
to  understand  or  even  ignorantly  to  fear  any- 
thing so  vaguely  imperative  as  the  command 
of  Uncle  Archie's  ghost.  It  was  natural  that  she  should 
think  that  if  she  only  kicked  energetically  enough,  her 
proficient  little  feet  could  disperse  that  fact  which  was 
to  her  as  nebulous  as  a  cloud.  How  could  she  possibly 
know  that  a  thing  so  vague  as  Binky's  obligation  was 
still  as  hard  and  fixed  as  a  star,  and  as  far  out  of 
reach  of  her  spurning  toe?  Her  antics  were  as  futile 
and  unbecoming  as  though  she  had  literally  aimed  one 
foot  after  another  in  violent  and  rapid  succession  toward 
some  shrouded  constellation  in  the  heavens.  So,  at 
least,  they  seemed  to  me,  but  to  Binky,  who  was  so 
under  her  spell,  they  must  have  seemed  merely  bewilder- 
ing and  disappointing.  He  was  too  surprisedly,  too 
utterly  unprepared  for  her  attitude  to  think  it  absurd. 
It  seemed  to  him  as  unaccountable  as  the  reversing  of 
the  law  of  gravitation,  and  he  stared  at  it  with  a  kind 
of  awe,  just  as  he  would  have  stared  if  she  had  jumped 
into  the  air  and  gone  on  upward  over  the  roofs.  That 
describes  the  two  of  them  fairly  well.  She  jumped, 
and  he  expected  her  to  come  down  again  to  meet  him  on 
some  sort  of  solid  ground  of  understanding,  but  instead 
she  flew  away  out  of  his  sight  with  a  whirl  of  her  petti- 
coats, and  he  was  left  gaping. 

I  gathered  from  his  agitation  and  from  what  he  said 

287 


288          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to  me  and  did  not  say,  that  he  had  received  a  rebuff 
almost  at  once,  when  they  drove  o&  to  her  home  together 
from  the  railway-station.  It  was  a  case  of  his  having 
taken  everything  for  granted,  in  the  way  my  father 
called  so  very  English.  She  had  allowed  him,  he  thought, 
to  take  everything  for  granted.  The  thing  seemed  to 
him  of  a  great  and  beautiful  simplicity.  These  things 
are,  in  his  world.  But  he  was  not  in  his  world.  He 
was  in  Phil's  very  attractively  crowded  drawing-room, 
a  drawing-room  crowded  with  every  conceivable  co- 
quettish obstacle  to  the  business  of  passion.  And  he 
found  himself  up  against  the  most  bewildering  array 
of  reservations,  prohibitions,  demands,  and  scruples.  He 
gave  the  impression,  that  evening,  of  a  man  who  had 
come  straight  from  embracing  a  hornets'  nest,  or  at 
least  a  nest  of  flies  that  buzzed  as  annoyingly  as  hornets, 
if  their  sting  was  not  so  deadly.  All  those  things  she 
professed,  and  the  things  she  promised,  and  the  things 
she  exacted,  were  singing  still  in  his  ears.  All  her  kisses 
and  her  stings  and  her  little  slaps  on  his  face.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  hide  from  me  the  signs  of  them. 
I  heard  them  and  I  saw  them,  and  I  marvelled  that  he 
wanted  to  go  back  to  that  torment,  for  he  did.  He 
was  eager  to  be  stung  so  long  as  he  might  be  kissed. 
Such  was  the  sweetness  of  her  lips  that  he  would  do 
anything  that  he  might  drink  it,  except  just  that  one 
thing. 

Phyllis  is  very  clever.  She  was  clever  enough  to  mix 
just  the  right  proportions  of  drugs  and  poisons  and 
stimulants  in  the  drink  she  gave  him.  She  got  him  into 
the  most  pitiful  state,  more  than  half  demented,  wholly 
intoxicated,  and  then  she  sent  him  reeling  from  her.  She 
kept  him  there  in  the  most  perfectly  calculated  proximity, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  289 

at  just  the  most  deadly  minimum  of  distance  for  five 
hours,  and  then  at  exactly  ten  minutes  to  six  she  flung  him 
lightly  out  of  the  door,  allowing  herself  ten  minutes  to  get 
ready  for  Pat. 

Binky  came  home  and  found  the  telegram.  Up  to 
that  point  he  had,  I  gathered,  been  undecided.  His 
struggle  with  her  had  been  half-hearted.  She  had  almost 
succeeded  in  making  a  double  divorce  and  marriage  with 
her  seem  possible.  'He  wasn't  then  quite  inevitably 
tied.  Under  her  hypnotic  murmurs  he  had  almost  per- 
suaded himself  that  he  was  a  free  agent.  The  prize 
that  she  dangled  before  his  eyes  seemed  worth  thei 
sacrifice  of  his  self-esteem.  He  was,  when  she  had 
finished  with  him,  resolved  to  try  to  get  out  of  the 
tangle  of  his  financial  indebtedness  to  us,  my  father  and 
me.  But  Uncle  Archie,  with  that  final  capricious  act  of 
death,  as  he  put  it  afterwards,  settled  his  hash.  It  was 
hopeless. 

Such  violent  adjustments  in  such  a  short  space  of 
time  are  confusing  even  to  write  about.  When  he  an-, 
nounced  the  news  to  me,  in  that  almost  imbecile  tone, 
before  dinner,  I  had  the  sensation  of  falling  from  a 
great  height  on  to  a  very  soft,  uncertain  surface,  and  of 
sprawling  there  helplessly.  I  felt  like  a  circus-performer 
who  had  dropped  from  a  trapeze,  and  was  obliged  to 
walk  across  one  of  those  great  sagging  nets  they  sling 
under  trapezes.  I  made  for  the  ground  cautiously  and 
with  difficulty,  unaccustomed  to  such  performances.  The 
thing  swung  and  quaked  under  me. 

Jerry  saved  us  at  dinner.  We  couldn't  talk  to  each 
other,  my  father  and  Binky  and  I,  so  we  all  talked  to 
him.  We  kept  our  eyes  on  his  face.  We  clung  to  him, 
at  least  Binky  and  I  did,  We  wrapped  ourselves  up 


290  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

in  the  sane  light  of  his  broad,  freckled  face,  and  tried 
to  reflect  it  back  to  him,  and  he,  all  unaware,  saved  me. 
Dear  Jerry!  He  liked  Binky  always,  and  he  likes  him 
now.  He  loved  Phyllis  always,  and  he  loves  her  now. 
He  has  always  helped  us.  He  is  one  of  those  priceless, 
insignificant  people  who  make  it  comfortable  for  egoists 
in  this  world. 

I  went  up  to  my  room  at  once  after  dinner.  Binky 
would  have  to  tell  my  father  about  Uncle  Archie.  I 
didn't  want  to  be  there,  for  I  didn't  know  what  I 
could  say.  I  knew  he  would  follow  me.  There  were 
things  we  had  to  talk  over.  He  would  be  going  off  at 
once,  and  I  had  to  make  up  my  mind  what  I  was  going 
to  do.  I  knew  what  there  was  to  do,  but  I  felt  for 
those  long  minutes  when  I  sat  alone,  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  do  it.  And  yet  —  if  I  didn't,  where  was 
I?  My  father  wouldn't  help  me.  He  expected  the  im- 
possible of  me.  And  now  that  Uncle  Archie  was  dead, 
I  could  no  longer  delude  myself  into  thinking  that  the 
children  were  mine.  I  was  theirs  certainly.  I  was  to 
follow  them  as  a  slave,  loving  them  fiercely  and  im- 
potently,  trying,  with  futile,  fumbling  hands,  to  ward 
off  evils  and  dangers  from  them;  but  they  didn't  belong 
to  me,  they  belonged  to  those  houses  and  castles  and 
traditions  and  conventions  over  there,  in  that  country  of 
Binky's  exacting  ancestors  and  relations.  Wouldn't  it 
be  better  for  me  to  let  them  go?  They  wouldn't  want 
me  much,  for  very  long.  I  saw  my  life  as  a  humiliating, 
ignominious  thing.  Was  it  worth  living  for  ever  in  a 
false  position,  so  that  I  might  work  for  them  and  be  loved 
by  them  a  little,  and  hurt  very  much  ?  I  saw  Aunt  Cora 
beckoning  to  me  peremptorily,  and  Clem  and  Monica 
gracefully  waiting  for  me  to  be  led  like  a  lamb  to  the 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  291 

slaughter.  I  saw  crowds  and  crowds  of  relations  calmly 
expecting  me  to  play  the  part  they  had  so  graciously 
given  me  in  their  funny  old  English  pantomime.  It 
angered  me  to  think  they  had  power  over  me  as  well 
as  Binky ;  yet  they  had.  They  had  the  power  of  an 
established  and  arrogant  sect  over  a  poor  little  hea- 
then. If  I  didn't  accept  baptism  at  their  hands  they 
would  take  my  children  from  me  and  pronounce  a  ban 
against  me.  It  was  almost  altogether  a  question  of  the 
children  then.  Binky  didn't  come  into  it,  until  he  brought 
himself  in.  I  had  taken  leave  of  him  only  twenty-eight 
hours  before,  and  I  was  incapable  of  constructing  a  new 
world  with  him  in  it  again. 

He  brought  himself  in,  however,  with  the  look  of 
utter  helplessness  that  greeted  me  when  he  opened  the 
door.  My  heart  sank  as  I  looked  into  his  face.  I  knew 
then  that  I  couldn't  go  back  on  him,  and,  although  his 
first  remark  and  most  of  his  words,  that  night,  kept 
obscuring  the  issue  by  hurting  me  quite  irrelevantly,  I 
still  knew  all  the  time  what  the  issue  was  and  what  the 
outcome  would  be. 

His  first  remark  was :  "  I  don't  understand  her  —  she 
beats  me."  He  dropped  into  a  chair  and  remained  there, 
huddled  up  and  crumpled.  I  was  waiting  for  him  to 
curse  Uncle  Archie  for  dying,  and  I  was  utterly  aston- 
ished. I  didn't  realize  at  the  moment  that  he'd  no  time 
to  think  things  out,  that  all  the  complicated  bits  of  his 
puzzle  were  lying  about  loose  in  his  mind,  and  that  he 
just  picked  up  the  first  one  and  handed  it  over  to  me. 
It  became  clear,  however,  soon  enough,  that  I  was  to 
put  the  thing  together  for  him.  He  couldn't  without  my 
help.  Phyllis  had  seen  to  that  by  deranging  his  wits  and 
playing  the  devil  with  his  nerves. 


292          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  You  know  her  better  than  I  do.  What's  her  idea?  " 
He  sunk  his  chin  into  his  collar.  He  had  on  still  the 
clothes  he'd  put  on  at  Green  Gables  that  morning,  and 
he  appeared,  for  him,  almost  grubby.  His  face  was 
mottled,  too,  and  puffy  about  the  eyes.  It  looked  rather 
as  it  looked  the  other  day  when  he  came  home  on  a 
week's  leave.  Phyllis  had  left  traces  very  similar  to  the 
traces  of  the  war. 

"  Her  idea,"  I  said,  "  is  marriage." 

He  pondered  over  it. 

"  Yes.     I  suppose  it  was." 

"  It  is,"  I  corrected. 

"  Yes,  of  course.  She  doesn't  know.  I  only  got  the 
telegram  at  dinner-time."  He  brought  this  out  pettishly, 
annoyed  at  my  preciseness,  as  a  sick  child  might  be  an- 
noyed with  a  nurse. 

"  It  still  will  be,"  I  said  again. 

He  gave  himself  a  jerk.  "What  do  you  mean  by 
that?" 

"  I  mean  it  still  will  be  when  she  knows  all  —  all  the 
more  so." 

He  looked  at  me  suspiciously  for  a  moment.  For 
one  moment  he  distrusted  me.  The  thought  passed 
through  his  mind  that  I  was  going  to  try  and  turn  him 
against  her. 

"  It's  not,"  I  said,  "  that  she  only  wants  your  par- 
aphernalia. It's  simply  that  she  won't  see  why  she 
shouldn't  have  it  all  thrown  in." 

He  stared.  He  stared  a  long  time,  then  because  it 
was  too  much  for  him,  all  at  once  he  went  back  to  the 
beginning  again. 

"  I  had  to  tell  her  today  that  it  was  all  a  question 
for  you,  not  for  us."  He  ground  his  teeth.  A  hot  flush 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  293 

of  anguish  spread  over  his  face.  "  I  had  to  tell  her  that 
if  you  chose  to  get  rid  of  me  I  should  be  a  pauper."  He 
could  scarcely  get  on  with  it.  "  I  had  to  tell  her  your 
father  had  made  settlements  —  that  —  that  would  have 
to  be  re  —  rearranged  —  that  it  would  be  a  question  of 
being  poor.  I  said  I  didn't  mind  that,  but  —  she  took 
it  —  queerly." 

"How  did  she  take  it?" 

"  She  laughed  —  and  put  it  off  —  switched  into  some- 
thing else." 

I  felt  very  sorry  for  him.  I  saw  her  switching  off 
into  something  else  —  kisses  and  laughter  and  wheedling 
—  but  it  was  not  my  business  to  see  all  that,  it  was  my 
business  to  get  the  main  point  clear. 

"  And  when  she  came  back  to  it?  "  I  asked. 

"  She  said  any  one  could  do  anything  if  they  wanted  to 
enough." 

"  There  you  are !  "  I  burst  out.  "  That's  her  point  of 
view." 

We  seemed  to  have  completed  a  definite  section  of  the 
puzzle.  We  paused  together  and  looked  at  it,  and  then 
he  brought  out  all  irrelevantly,  with  a  groan,  and  quite 
unconscious  that  he  spoke  aloud: 

"  I  didn't  want  to  discuss  things.  I  didn't  want  to 
talk  at  all."  He  groaned  again  inarticulately  like  a  sick 
man  horribly  hurt,  and  then  I  caught  the  words :  "  God, 
what  a  lot  of  talk !  "  He  twisted  and  gave  himself  a 
wrench,  and  jumped  to  his  feet,  suddenly  conscious  of  me 
and  of  the  display  he  was  affording  me. 

"  I'm  a  swine  to  come  to  you  like  this.  I  beg  your 
pardon.  I've  no  right  —  it's  ridiculous  —  absurd  — 
worse." 

I  said  nothing.     What  could  I  say?    It  was  ridiculous 


294  THE  RoMANTIC  WOMAN 

—  or  it  would  have  been  if  it  hadn't  been  so  dreadful  —  if 
I  hadn't  seen  the  vulgar  cruelty  of  Phyllis  so  clearly 
marked  on  him. 

"  I  shall  have  to  leave  tomorrow  —  sail  on  Wednes- 
day." He  tried  to  assume  a  dry,  definite  tone,  but  it 
broke  down  at  once,  for  he  was  up  against  horrors 
again.  He  had  something  to  ask  of  me  about  myself. 
He  choked  over  it.  He  couldn't  bring  it  out.  He 
turned  his  back,  kicked  the  fire,  and  then  again  he 
went  back,  abandoning  the  thing  that  was  too  much  for 
him. 

"  I  must  see  her  tomorrow.     How  can  I  ?  " 
"  I  will  get  her  here  if  you  can't  go  there,"  I  said 
coldly.     I  wanted  to  get  on  with  the  real  business.     His 
good    taste    saved    him    from    thanking   me.     He    was 
stranded  again. 

It  was  terribly  hard  for  him,  poor  dear!  He  is  a 
sensitive  creature,  not  so  sensitive  as  Jim  was,  but  more 
so  than  I  had  ever  given  him  credit  for.  He  felt  that 
he  had  been  guilty  of  very  bad  taste  in  letting  me  see 
how  much  he  cared  about  Phyllis.  That  is  how  it  would 
appear  to  him.  I  was,  so  I  perceived  long  afterwards, 
on  a  different  plane  altogether.  His  idea  was  somewhat 
similar  to  that  of  a  little  king  in  his  own  kingdom.  He 
regarded  me,  though  it  may  sound  absurd,  as  his  con- 
sort, and  his  love-affairs  ought  not  to  have  been  dragged 
into  my  presence.  Now  that  he  had  actually  come  into 
his  inheritance,  and  he  saw  us  fixed  in  our  little  chairs 
of  state,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  almost  insulted 
me.  This  woman  who  had  brought  a  dowry  to  his 
bankrupt  house,  had  been  humiliated.  He  was  ashamed. 
He  was  also  rather  frightened.  He  realized  that  it  was 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  295 

quite  conceivable  that  I  should  abdicate.  If  I  chose 
to  abandon  him,  he  could  not  possibly  ask  me  to 
stay.  He  had  no  right  to,  and  with  all  that  formal  sense 
of  his  own  dignity  put  aside,  he  had  too  much  respect 
for  me. 

He  stood  with  his  back  to  me,  in  silence.  "  I  shall 
catch  the  Mauretania,"  he  brought  out  again.  "  And 
you  ?  "  at  last  he  managed  to  mutter  into  the  fire.  "  What 
are  your  plans?"  If  he  hadn't  turned  around  to  face 
me  at  last  —  I  waited  long  for  him  to  turn  —  I  don't  know 
what  I  should  have  said.  I  couldn't  have  said  what  I 
did  if  I  hadn't  seen  in  his  face  finally,  while  I  tortured 
him  staring  at  it,  that  Phyllis  was,  after  all,  of  secondary 
importance,  that  he  was  really  urged  by  an  impulse  deep 
enough,  compelled  by  a  summons  serious  enough,  to  carry 
him  through,  afterwards. 

"  I  shall  follow  you  with  the  children,"  I  said  then. 

The  silence  that  succeeded  this  was  precarious.  I  was 
in  a  panic  lest  he  give  away.  It  seemed  to  me  of  tremen- 
dous importance  for  us,  for  the  whole  of  the  dreary,  com- 
plex future,  that  he  should  take  it  casually  and  with  a 
certain  stiffness.  It  came  to  me  of  a  sudden,  that  his 
nonchalance  was,  after  all,  of  a  piece  with  his  religion, 
and  that  it  had  to  do  with  the  central  spring  in  him.  If 
that  spring  snapped  now,  it  seemed  to  me  we  should  col- 
lapse together,  and  the  dignity  of  the  future,  which  was 
the  one  thing  left  to  us,  would  be  gone. 

He  quivered,  as  I  say,  he  trembled  on  the  very  edge 
of  a  humiliating  breakdown.  He  all  but  put  out  his  poor, 
grateful  hands  to  me.  If  he  had,  I  should  have  always 
beheld  him  as  contemptible.  I  might  even  have  thrown 
him  over  after  giving  him  my  word.  But  he  caught  him- 


296          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

self  in  time.  I  saw  it  all  come  back  to  him.  It  was  as 
though  Uncle  Archie  had  thrown  his  own  beautiful  mantle 
over  him  to  cover  up  Phil's  dirty  little  finger-marks. 

"  That's  all  right,  then !  It's  good  of  you,  my  dear, 
to  take  all  the  fag  of  travelling  with  them  alone."  He 
did  it  very  well.  He  did  it  beautifully,  even  to  the  finish- 
ing touch  of  pulling  out  his  cigarette-case,  twisting  a 
piece  of  paper,  which  he  held  to  the  fire,  and  lighting  his- 
cigarette  with  it,  before  he  said  "  Good-night,"  and  left 
me. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

IN  the  meantime,  Louise  had  set  going  the  little  buzz- 
ing clock  of  her  doom.     That's  the  second  time  I've 
used  this  word  "  doom."    It's  a  big  word  to  use  twice 
in  a  story,  but  it  is  no  bigger  than  my  father's  feeling 
about  me,  and  it  is  quite  conventionally  apt  as  regards 
poor  Louise.     Any  one  would  admit  it  in  her  case.     It 
wasn't  only  that  she  made  him  kill  her,  but  that  she 
brought  him  finally  to  it,  just  when  she  might  have  begun 
to  live. 

I  have  tried  to  see  things  clearly.  I  have  thought  about 
it  all  for  so  many  hours  and  days  and  nights,  that  I  know 
now  that  it  was  not  my  doing.  If  I  had  to  condemn 
myself  as  regards  Louise,  I  could  never  say  a  word  of 
all  this.  I  could  never  write  a  word  about  my  own  life 
except  one  word.  Of  course  there  have  been  hysterical 
times  when  I  have  blamed  myself  and  lacerated  myself, 
but  that  sort  of  thing  is  just  the  revenge  of  God  for 
having  been  slighted  in  other  connections.  As  I've  said 
before,  I  might  have  saved  them  both  by  being  true  to 
Jim  long  ago,  when  there  was  a  chance  of  marrying  him, 
but  for  the  afterwards,  as  regards  Louise,  my  conscience 
is  clear. 

It  seems  that  she  came  home  after  the  blizzard,  having 
telegraphed  the  time  of  her  arrival,  that  she  arrived  at 
nine  o'clock  by  the  "Twentieth  Century"  from  New 
York  on  the  Monday  morning,  and  that  Jim  was  not  there 

297 


298  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

to  meet  her.  The  car  was  at  the  station,  but  no  Jim,  and 
the  chauffeur  told  her  his  master  was  out  of  town.  Two 
shocks:  the  first,  not  seeing  Jim,  who  had  always  met 
her  at  the  station  on  every  single  occasion  when  she'd 
been  away  without  him;  the  second,  that  he  was  out  of 
town,  for  he  had  declined  to  accompany  her  on  her  trip 
to  New  York  on  the  ground  that  he  was  too  busy.  Jim 
had  not  lied  to  her.  She  had  gone  to  New  York  for  a 
week,  and  he  had  gone  to  Otrago  for  two  days,  but  she 
couldn't  be  expected  to  know  that  all  at  first,  or  to  admit 
the  importance  of  the  difference  when  she  did  know  it. 
She  hurried  home,  and  was  told  by  the  butler  that  Mr. 
Van  Orden  had  gone  with  Major  and  Mrs.  Dawkins  to 
Otrago  Lake,  and  had  not  returned.  At  eleven  o'clock 
she  telephoned  me.  I  remembered  afterwards  that  Ed- 
ward told  me  she  had  telephoned.  She  got  little  satisfac- 
tion out  of  Edward.  By  this  time,  in  an  acute  state  of 
irritation,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  herself,  she  or- 
dered the  car  again  and  rushed  round  to  her  mother  to 
talk  it  all  over.  Her  mother  was  out  too.  That  was 
most  unfortunate  for  all  of  us.  For  once  Mrs.  Bowers 
was  needed,  and  for  once  she  was  not  there.  Louise 
would  have  complained  of  Jim  for  going  away  without 
telling  her,  for  not  being  home  to  meet  her,  for  being  an 
indifferent  husband,  and  that  would  have  been  the  end  of 
it.  Mrs.  Bowers  might  have  helped  us  all  by  providing 
poor  Louise  with  a  safety-valve,  but  she  didn't,  and 
Louise,  feeling  forsaken  and  deceived  by  all  the  world, 
with  a  train  headache  and  an  empty  stomach  —  she  had 
eaten,  of  course,  no  breakfast  —  ordered  the  car  again 
and  went  whizzing  down  town  to  buy  things,  the  spending 
of  money  being  the  only  outlet  for  her  distress,  that  she 
could  think  of.  As  luck  would  have  it,  in  the  middle  of 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  299 

Jefferson  Drive  she  met  Patrick  O'Brien,  standing  in  the 
snow  leaning  over  the  hood  of  his  machine.  Under  or- 
dinary circumstances  she  would  have  given  him  the  cold- 
est and  smallest  of  nods,  but  some  demon  of  intuition 
possessed  her.  She  saw  his  bags  in  the  front  of  his  car, 
and  she  stopped,  beckoning  him  to  cross  the  road  to  her. 
He  presented  his  huge  head,  that  she  disliked  so  in- 
tensely, at  the  window  of  her  brougham  —  it  always  made 
her  squirm,  she  said,  "  it  never  looked  clean,  that  bush  of 
red " —  and  she  asked  him  peremptorily,  showing  her 
white,  sharp  little  teeth,  where  he  had  been.  He  in- 
formed her  in  one  long,  hurried  breath,  that  he'd  come 
from  Otrago,  was  in  an  awful  hurry,  had  to  get  home  and 
change,  and  meet  a  man  on  business,  and  hoped  she'd  had 
a  good  trip  —  but  she  kept  him. 

"  Where's  your  wife?  " 

"  I  had  to  leave  her.  She'd  knocked  her  head  open 
ice-boating."  Then  a  gleam  came  into  his  face.  Pat  has 
a  savage  sense  of  humour.  "  I  left  her  to  Major  Daw- 
kins.  He'll  bring  her  home  all  right !  " 

"  Not  alone  ?  "  panted  Louise,  breathless  with  horrid 
discoveries. 

"  Oh,  well,  no  —  not  quite.  Your  husband  and  his 
wife  are  with  'em."  He  gave  a  guffaw.  "  We  had  a 
hot  time,  I  can  tell  you.  Too  bad  you  weren't  there !  So 
long."  She  let  him  go. 

It's  easy  enough  to  see  how  it  would  affect  her,  pro- 
vided you  remembered  how  she  hated  Phyllis,  and  all  too 
easy  if  you  admit  that  she  was  already,  indeed  had  been 
always,  jealous  of  me. 

She  didn't  go  down  town,  she  turned  round  and  went 
home.  She  took  off  her  things  and  sat  down  and  waited 
for  Jim.  He  didn't  come.  She  refused  lunch,  and  sat 


300  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

on  working  it  out,  working  it  out.  It's  funny  to  think  of 
her  sitting  there  thinking  deadly  things  about  me  and 
Jim,  while  I  was  sitting  thinking  too,  in  my  father's 
room. 

Jim  told  me  about  it  long,  long  afterwards  —  after 
we  had  buried  her  —  before  he  went  away.  He  told  me 
that  it  all  began  then,  that  day,  and  he  suggested,  in  that 
weary  detachment,  as  though  he  were  the  dead  one  talk- 
ing to  some  other  man  who  was  alive,  that  it  hadn't  seemed 
to  pay,  being  good.  He  always  puts  things  in  those 
funny,  childish  terms.  He'd  been  good,  he  said,  for 
ten  years,  had  never  let  himself  think  of  me  or  dream 
of  me  as  his  love,  and  it  hadn't  made  him  happy  or  brought 
him  any  reward.  Jim's  language  is  sometimes  very 
quaint. 

I  remember  so  well  the  way  his  words  echoed  in  the 
billiard-room  at  Saracens.  Sometimes  he  spoke  very  loud 
and  sometimes  in  a  whisper,  but  all  the  time  with  a 
peculiar  distinctness,  the  kind  of  mediumistic  distinctness 
that  my  mother's  voice  used  to  have  when  she  prayed 
over  me.  While  he  was  talking,  he  walked  slowly  round 
the  billiard-table  with  his  hand  rubbing  along  the  cushion. 
Opposite  the  window  he  would  stop  and  look  out,  and 
then  resume  his  walk  again.  It  was  a  day  of  mist  and 
rain.  The  fog  rolled  up  to  the  windows  and  rolled  back 
again,  revealing  the  green  lawns  and  the  brown  trees. 
Sometimes  we  were  shut  in  by  the  blanket  of  it,  and  then 
we  were  released  again.  His  pauses  at  the  window  were 
longest  when  he  could  see  nothing,  and  his  voice  then 
came  to  me  in  a  whisper. 

"  I  was  untrue  to  you  always,  so  that  I  could  be  true 
to  her.  She  was  like  that.  She  twisted  me  into  knots. 
She  made  me  crooked  with  the  whole  world.  I  loved 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  301 

you.  You  were  my  sweetheart  —  I  mean  you  were  the 
wife  of  my  soul,  but  I  always  kissed  her  whenever  she 
wanted  me  to,  and  I  didn't  kiss  her  when  she  didn't  want 
me  to."  He  said  all  this,  staring  away,  at  me  or  through 
me,  it  didn't  matter,  always  as  though  I  weren't  there. 
Actually  as  the  light  waned  and  the  room  grew  dark,  he 
talked  to  me  about  myself  in  the  third  person.  It  was 
very  curious  and  terrible.  He  would  say,  walking  away 
down  the  table: 

"Louise  had  no  right  to  be  jealous  of  Joan!"  And 
then  coming  up  the  other  side :  "  I  gave  my  wife  all  she 
wanted  —  I  swear  I  did,  until  she  began  to  make  that 
awful  fuss.  She  kept  it  up  for  three  years  —  the  fuss. 
She  said  things  about  Joan.  I  wonder  what  made  her? 
I  don't  understand !  " —  stopping  at  the  window.  "  She 
didn't  want  any  more  children  after  that  first  one.  She 
didn't  want  me  to  love  her  much.  She  only  wanted  me 
to  be  always  there  dancing  attendance,  and  she  wanted 
those  sables,  and  I  gave  them  to  her,  and  the  diamonds 
and  emeralds.  It  must  have  been  that  she-devil,  her 
mother !  If  I'd  had  the  nerve  to  kill  her  mother,  it  would 
have  been  all  right.  All  right  in  a  way.  Of  course  it 
couldn't  have  been  very  right  for  me,  anything,  because 
I  lost  my -nerve  when  I  was  a  kid.  I  was  afraid  of  Joan. 
She  was  wild." 

He  looked  small  under  those  great  windows.  He  is 
small,  but  that  expanse  of  glass  seemed  to  diminish  him 
very  much.  Presently  he  would  realize  that  it  was  there 
behind  him  in  a  chair  by  the  fire. 

"  You  admit  that  you  were  wild,  don't  you  ?  You  must 
blame  me,  of  course,  for  not  trusting  you  then,  when  you 
kissed  me  in  the  sun,  but  you  admit  that  you  were  danger- 
ous. I  was  afraid  of  you,  and  afraid  of  drinking  too 


302  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

much."  He  went  on  walking.  "  There  was  nothing  wild 
about  Louise.  She  did  her  best,  too,  to  make  me  give  it 
up  —  drinking,  I  mean  —  but  you  can't  do  that  sort  of 
thing  without  loving  very  much.  You  see  I  had  to  have 
something  —  I've  always,  constantly,  wanted  to  be  drunk. 
I  love  getting  dr.unk.  When  I'm  drunk  I'm  not  afraid. 
Louise  was  good.  I  should  think  she  drank  about  a 
thousand  gallons  of  milk  while  she  lived  with  me.  You 
could  taste  the  milk  on  her  lips,  though  they  didn't  look- 
like  that.  She  used  lip-salve,  but  she  thought  it  wicked 
to  put  rouge  on  her  cheeks.  She  liked  to  have  men  ad- 
mire her,  but  she  never  let  them  make  love  to  her.  She 
was  mine.  I  never  let  any  one  else  look  at  her.  If  I 
saw  a  man  looking  at  her,  I  kicked  him  out  of  the  house. 
She  was  my  prize  doll  that  I'd  bought.  I  kept  her  tied 
up  in  a  box,  and  she  liked  it."  There  was  no  energy  in 
all  this,  merely  that  cruel  distinctness.  "  She  liked  to 
have  rows  so  that  she  could  make  it  up  again.  I  expect 
that's  what  she  wanted  this  time.  I  couldn't  stand  any 
more  making-up.  We'd  had  three  years  of  rows.  The 
first  one  was  that  day  when  she  got  home  from  New  York 
—  the  first  real  one.  She  asked  me  how  I  dared  go  to  a 
house-party  where  the  O'Briens  were.  It's  funny  their 
being  here  this  time.  She  seemed  to  think  I  had  been 
guilty  toward  her,  in  going  to  stay  in  the  same  house 
with  Phyllis.  She  said  Phyllis  was  having  a  low  intrigue 
with  your  husband  —  a  low  intrigue,  that  was  her  ex- 
pression. I  let  her  go  on  about  Phyllis.  Phyllis's  reputa- 
tion wasn't  any  of  my  business.  Then  she  said  something 
about  you,  and  how  living  in  London  had  made  you  de- 
praved. I  don't  know  where  she  got  that  word  '  de- 
praved ' —  I  shut  her  up  then  —  I  suppose  my  getting 
angry  gave  her  her  cue.  She  said  she'd  no  doubt  you 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN          303 

would  like  to  console  yourself  with  an  intrigue  on  your 
own.  You  can't  blame  me  for  getting  angry  then.  It 
was  the  least  I  could  do  for  you.  I  told  her  if  she  ever 
spoke  of  you  again  I'd  smash  her  face.  It's  funny  how 
people  who  know  how  to  be  polite  can  talk  when  they're 
angry.  She  was  frightened  then.  She  never  did  men- 
tion you  again  to  me  —  not  in  all  that  three  years  of  rows 
—  but  she  was  always  thinking  about  you,  I  expect. 
I  didn't  know  or  I  never  would  have  let  her  come  here. 
I  don't  see  how  she  could  have  kept  on  thinking  —  you 
were  out  of  sight.  You've  been  out  of  sight  most  of  the 
time.  I've  never  been  to  see  you.  I've  never  written  to 
you. 

"  I  used  to  go  away  when  I  couldn't  stand  it  any 
longer.  I  went  to  Ireland  once,  for  some  hunting.  She 
never  believed  I  hadn't  been  to  see  you.  She  kept  asking 
me  all  about  that  trip,  where  I'd  stayed  on  the  15th  and 
the  i6th,  wanted  me  to  account  to  her  for  every  hour.  I 
did,  but  she  thought  I'd  lied  and  had  squeezed  in  London 
somehow.  I  was  only  in  Ireland  a  month.  I  never 
stayed  away  from  her  long.  I  would  have  managed  all 
right  if  she  had  been  willing  to  do  her  part.  I  mean  I'd 
have  kept  respectable.  It's  the  business  of  loving  wives 
to  keep  their  husbands  respectable  if  they  don't  want  to 
be  jealous.  She  didn't  ever  mention  you,  but  she  was  al- 
ways making  scenes  about  other  people.  What  had  they 
got  to  do  with  her?  I  didn't  love  them.  She  found  out 
once  that  I  had  a  flat  in  New  York  and  kept  a  little  girl 
there.  She  was  a  nice  girl.  She  was  kind  to  me  and 
honest.  I  kept  her  from  starving.  She  had  a  kid  five 
years  old.  She  was  quite  happy  in  that  flat.  There  was 
a  fearful  row  when  Louise  found  out.  I  told  her  it  was 
none  of  her  business.  The  woman  had  nothing  to  do 


304          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

with  her.  She  said  that  I  was  her  husband  and  belonged 
to  her  —  that  marriage  was  a  sacred  thing.  I  suppose  she 
was  right  in  a  way  —  about  marriage,  only  ours  wasn't 
a  marriage  any  more,  or  ever,  for  that  matter.  She 
brought  her  mother  into  it.  I  told  her  —  the  mother  —  to 
go  to  the  devil.  Louise  didn't  want  me  in  her  bedroom, 
so  I'd  made  other  arrangements.  Her  mother  wasn't 
shocked  a  bit.  She  winked.  Her  wink  was  the  ugliest 
thing  on  God's  earth.  It  made  Louise  look  quite  beau- 
tiful. I  suppose  I  was  rather  glad,  somehow,  that  Louise 
cared.  Her  rows  were  better,  anyhow,  than  Mrs. 
Bowers's  pats.  I  gave  up  the  flat  in  New  York.  Louise 
was  happy  for  a  couple  of  months,  but  she  got  frightened 
about  having  another  kid.  She  played  the  martyr,  made 
me  feel  like  a  brute,  so  I  left  her  alone  again.  Curious  — 
she  never  enjoyed  it!  I  couldn't  go  on  bothering  her, 
seeing  her  grit  her  teeth.  And  I  couldn't  stand  her  pose 
of  the  long-suffering  woman.  I  gave  it  up.  I  was  a 
monk  for  a  time.  You  can't  go  on  like  that  indefinitely. 
One  of  my  wife's  friends  angled  for  me.  I  was  hooked: 
I  hated  her.  She  used  to  lunch  with  Louise,  and  say  she 
was  her  dearest  friend.  Once  I  caught  them  kissing  each 
other.  It  made  me  sick.  I  went  to  South  America  with 
Jerry.  Jerry  did  me  a  lot  of  good.  Then  the  kid  died. 
Louise  nearly  went  off  her  head.  I  thought  she  had.  I 
don't  know  why  that  didn't  save  us.  It  must  have  been 
the  she-devil  interfering  again.  Louise  was  a  mother  — 
you  know  what  kind  of  a  mother  she  was.  Her  occupa- 
tion was  gone.  She  was  very  queer.  Then  her  mother 
suggested  her  having  another  child.  She  had  hysterics, 
said  she  wasn't  going  through  all  that  again.  It  would 
kill  her.  To  have  one  child  born  and  one  child  die  was 
enough.  I  took  her  to  Japan.  She  got  better.  She  be- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  305 

gan  her  old  tricks.  Then  she  insisted  on  coming  here.  I 
thought  it  was  safe.  I  thought  she'd  forgotten." 

It  was  quite  dark  when  he  finished.  He  had  talked  for 
a  long  time,  walking  round  and  round  the  billiard-table. 
I  couldn't  have  stopped  him  if  I  had  wanted  to.  And  I 
didn't  want  to.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  talk, 
and  no  reason  why  he  should  keep  still. 

It  was  all  over,  and  we  were  all  dead  to  each  other, 
though  Louise  was  the  only  one  who  had  been  put  away 
into  the  ground  and  into  oblivion.  It  wasn't  necessary 
for  him  to  consider  her  any  more  —  she  was  dead,  and 
he  was  dead  too  —  to  trick  himself  with  sentimental  lies. 
He  just  looked  at  it  with  the  awful  calm  of  a  dead  person. 
He  had  never  been  calm  before.  All  his  life  had  been 
a  tumult.  That  was  over.  He  had  given  it  up  —  his 
struggle.  The  hope  which  had  lived  in  him  to  make  him 
passionate  and  restless,  was  gone  now.  He  had  always 
hoped,  up  to  that  very  last  night,  that  loth  of  September 
two  years  ago,  that  he  would  be  able  somehow  to  reconcile 
his  life  with  truth,  that  he  would  be  able  to  reconcile 
Louise  with  me,  in  his  own  mind.  Now  he  had  done 
away  with  us  both.  You  see  how  completely  I  have  lost 
him!  Some  one  told  me,  the  other  day,  that  he  had 
joined  the  French  Foreign  Legion  and  had  gone  to  the 
war.  I  don't  know.  It  makes  no  difference  to  me. 
There  is  not  even  any  joy  for  me  in  thinking  that  he  may 
die  bravely.  A  dead  man  can't  die  again. 

Louise  carried  his  soul  with  her  into  that  coffin  that  we 
buried  at  Saracens.  I  knew  it,  as  clearly  as  if  I'd  seen 
her  dead  hand  take  the  heart  out  of  his  breast  and  hide 
it  under  the  clothing  of  her  corpse.  He  had  no  moral 
sense  nor  any  regret  nor  any  desires  after  that.  One 
can't  criticize  his  taste  in  talking  to  me,  for  he  had  no 


306  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

sense  of  human  values.  His  brain  was  spinning  in  a  void, 
spinning  and  throwing  off  memories  as  a  top,  covered 
with  liquid,  would  throw  off  drops  as  it  spun.  I  don't 
know  how  he  has  been  living  since  then.  I  suppose  he  has 
been  eating  and  sleeping  and  smoking  and  drinking.  I 
don't  know.  An  automaton  if  properly  made  would  put 
on  its  clothes  and  take  them  off  again.  I  expect  he'll 
do  all  the  usual  things  in  the  usual  way,  until  the  ma- 
chinery stops. 

It's  strange  that  Binky  should  still  be  for  me  a  living 
person  when  Jim  is  not.  The  other  day,  when  Binky  was 
going  back  to  the  front  after  his  week  at  home,  he,  too, 
took  a  dive  back  into  memories.  I  went  with  him  to  the 
train  —  that  terrible  one  o'clock  from  Victoria  that  takes 
them  all  back,  poor  dears.  There  was  a  fog,  and  the 
thick  yellow  darkness,  the  murky  station  lights  and  the 
noise,  gave  an  added  horror  and  excitement  to  all  those 
"  Good-byes."  Belgians  and  French  were  going  off,  too, 
with  our  own  khaki  heroes.  A  child  was  crying  loudly, 
as  though  its  silly  little  heart  would  break,  and  women 
whose  hearts  were  breaking,  showed  faces  white  and 
dreadful  in  the  unreal  gloom,  and  men  were  trying  to 
be  what  men  are  expected  to  be  in  these  days.  It  affected 
Binky  and  me.  That  long  train  that  was  to  tear  itself 
out  of  the  aching  side  of  London  and  carry  them  all  off 
to  the  hungry  war,  how  could  it  but  affect  him  ?  Do  you 
think  it  weak  of  me  to  be  moved  because  he  was  going 
back  perhaps  to  be  killed?  He  looked  rather  splendid  to 
me  in  that  dimness,  wrapped  in  his  draggled  great-coat 
and  muffler,  and  with  his  face  still  weary  and  lined,  and 
his  hair  showing  white  at  the  sides.  He  looks  old  since 
the  war,  quite  old,  but  there  was  that  same  brightness  in 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  307 

his  eyes  for  a  moment,  when  he  gave  a  hitch  to  my  elbow 
and  said: 

"  My  dear,  you're  so  good  to  me !  It's  been  a  ripping 
week !  "  He  looked  down,  and  his  expression  deepened. 
"  You've  stood  by  me,"  he  said  shortly.  "If  you  hadn't 

stood  by  me "     He  looked  around.     He  seemed  to 

want  to  say  that  I  somehow  had  had  something  to  do  with 
giving  him  this  chance.  I  was  glad  —  I  am  glad,  but  as 
I  say,  if  Jim  is  there  and  if  he  dies  unnoticed  somewhere 
on  the  battlefield  where  a  million  men  are  dying,  it  can 
make  no  difference.  It  can't  help.  Louise  saw  to  that. 


CHAPTER  NINE 

WHENEVER  I  have  felt  like  hating  people, 
something  has  always  happened  to  make  me 
feel  sorry  for  them.  It  was  so  with  Phyllis. 
She  had  abused  Binky's  passion  as  only  a  vulgar  coquette 
could  do,  and  I  was  beginning  to  feel  I  had  a  right  to  hate 
her,  when  she  fled  to  me,  with  the  tale  of  how  her  hus- 
band had  beaten  her.  She  didn't  exactly  tell  me  how  he 
had  done  it,  whether  with  a  stick  or  a  slipper  or  a  whip, 
but  the  fact  was  clear  enough.  I  didn't  want  to  hear  — 
I  tried  to  stop  her  —  I  didn't  want  to  know  whether  it 
was  her  body  or  her  spirit  that  had  suffered  most,  and  I 
don't  want  to  think  of  it  now.  I  can't  bear  to  allow  my- 
self to  wonder  whether  he  did  it  in  blind  rage  or  to  the 
accompaniment  of  brutal  laughter.  I  hope  it  was  the 
former,  but  I'm  afraid  it  was  the  latter.  If  it  had  been 
blind  rage  I  don't  see  how  he  could  have  let  Binky 
escape,  or  how  he  could  ever,  even  after  an  interval  of 
three  years,  have  brought  Phyllis  to  stay  with  us.  That 
was  a  lurid  flare  of  his  sense  of  humour  —  that  was  his 
boisterous  revenge  on  Binky.  He  wanted  us  to  see  how 
perfectly  he  had  subdued  her  and  how  little  it  all  mat- 
tered. 

It  was  the  morning  after  Binky  left  to  catch  his  boat 
in  New  York,  that  we  three,  Louise  and  Phyllis  and  I, 
had  our  uncomfortable  and  futile  seance.  I  was  in  bed 
with  one  of  those  headaches  which  cannot  be  conjured  off 

308 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  309 

with  any  nervous  effort  of  will,  or  done  to  death  with 
drugs.  I  had  my  head  tied  round  with  a  wet  towel,  and 
I  lay  on  my  bed  listening  to  the  throbs  in  it,  that  punctu- 
ated the  echo  of  Binky's  final  talk.  He  had  given  me  to 
understand  that  Phyllis  regarded  his  departure  as  flight. 
He  had  warned  me  that  I  might  have  her  to  deal  with. 
With  a  wild  vagueness  he  had  announced  that  he  didn't 
know  what  she  might  not  do  or  say.  His  state  was  piti- 
ful. He  seemed  to  think  he  might  have  to  come  back  to 
set  things  right,  either  for  me  or  for  her,  or  for  both  of 
us,  I  couldn't  make  out  which.  If  he'  could  come  back 
in  a  month  or  so,  he  would  wire  me,  but  if  things  were  too 
exacting  and  binding  and  muddled  over  there,  he  would 
simply  have  to  leave  it  to  me,  to  get  loose  by  myself. 
His  idea  of  my  difficulty  in  getting  loose,  measured,  to 
my  mind,  the  extent  of  the  fuss  she  had  made,  the 
extent  to  which  she  had  tied  him  up  and  intimidated 
him. 

I  had  shut  them  into  my  boudoir  the  day  before,  and 
had  stood  guard,  as  it  were,  in  the  library.  Heaven 
knows  what  went  on  behind  those  closed  doors,  not  much 
in  the  way  of  love-making,  I  imagine.  Not  much,  that  is, 
as  I  should  measure  the  possible  wealth  of  a  lover's  leave- 
taking.  His  announcement  of  his  uncle's  death  had  had 
the  effect  I  had  prophesied.  He  admitted  this  to  me  with 
something  like  a  cry  of  rage  at  my  being  too  awfully 
clever.  It  hurt  him  to  find  out  that  I  knew  her  really  so 
well,  for  he  must  have  known  that  my  scrupulous  lack  of 
blame  proved  I  despised  her. 

We  had,  too,  on  top  of  it  all,  been  obliged  to  keep 
an  engagement  to  dine  with  Mrs.  Bowers,  and  to  our 
dismay  had  found  it  a  big  affair,  bigger,  I  suspected,  than 
she  had  intended  twenty-four  hours  before.  His  new 


3io  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

dignity  had  been  too  much  for  her.  Her  lapse  from 
taste  was,  in  a  person  so  punctilious,  what  you  may  call  an 
awful  give-away.  I  can  hear  her  telephoning  her  choice 
friends  to  come  and  say  good-bye  to  us.  We  had  ex- 
pected a  family  dinner.  We  were  suddenly  in  mourning 
and  should,  on  no  account,  have  let  her  inveigh  or  brow- 
beat us  into  dining  with  her  had  we  known.  It's  funny 
the  way  I  am  obliged  to  use  the  "  we."  The  publicity  of 
our  union  .was  one  of  the  most  ironic  things  about  those 
days.  Our  pictures  side  by  side  in  the  papers !  Our  new 
names  coupled  together  all  over  the  place. 

I  don't  doubt  that  Patrick  waved  some  of  those  papers 
in  Phil's  face.  I  don't  doubt  that  she  suffered  the  most 
acute  anguish  possible  to  a  greedy  soul.  She  had  felt 
so  sure;  she  had  had  the  whole  thing  in  her  hands,  her 
lovely,  white,  covetous  hands,  and  it  was  slipping  from 
her.  No  wonder  she  made  violent  efforts  to  save  it. 
Her  incredible  foolishness  in  telling  Pat  at  all  was  just  the 
last  resort  of  her  frantic  little  mind. 

It  was  as  plain  as  daylight  when  she  burst  into  my  bed- 
room against  the  warnings  of  my  maid  and  Edward  and 
even  of  my  poor  father,  it  was  plain  what  had  happened. 
I  believed  her  at  once. 

"  He  beat  me  —  last  night !  He  beat  me !  "  she  whim- 
pered. Of  course  I  believed  her.  It  was  just  what  he 
would  do. 

She  cried  a  good  deal.  She  blew  her  nose  repeatedly. 
She  was  not  pretty  with  her  eyes  all  swollen  and  her  nose 
red  and  her  lip  twisting,  and  I  felt  sorry  for  her.  I  saw 
that  some  day  she  would  lose  all  her  good  looks  and  her 
sense  of  humour  —  I  even  thought  that  they  had  deserted 
her  already.  I  didn't  reckon  with  her  extreme  adaptabil- 
ity, her  wonderful  faculty  for  recuperation.  When  she 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN          311 

came  here  the  other  day,  two  years  ago,  she  had  completely 
forgotten.  The  fact  that  she  had  once  admitted  to  me 
that  her  husband  had  beaten  her  was  nothing  to  her.  She 
was  not  in  the  least  ashamed  to  be  seen  by  me,  following 
him  in  perfect  complacent  docility,  playing  her  little  hol- 
low game  of  the  circus  lady  and  the  tame  beast. 

I  let  her  cry  on  the  foot  of  my  bed,  remarking  mildly 
that  my  headache  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  get  worked 
up  over  anything. 

"  But  what  am  I  to  do  ?  "  she  wailed.  And  then  in  a 
whisper.  "  Has  he  really  gone  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  my  head  rigid,  my  face  to  the  ceiling. 
She  went  on  sniffling. 

"  I've  burned  my  bridges,"  she  announced  at  last  ab- 
surdly. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  of  course  I  can't  go  back  to  Pat  now." 

"Oh!" 

"  And  as  I  —  I  love  Humphrey,  and  he  loves  me " 

I  must  have  smiled.  It  was  her  calling  him  Humphrey 
that  made  me  smile. 

"  So  you  think  it's  funny !  "  she  broke  in.  "  Of  course 
I  knew  you  didn't  care,  but  I  can't  see  why  it's  funny! " 

"  It's  not  funny,"  I  said  roughly. 

"  Well  —  you  smiled !  " 

"  It's  not  funny  —  but  you  are  ridiculous.  Of  course 
I'm  sorry  Pat  beat  you.  I'm  sorry  for  my  own  sake  as 
well  as  yours.  It  gives  you  an  advantage  over  me  of 
which  you  immediately  avail  yourself." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Johnnie !  " 

"  No,  I  suppose  you  don't." 

There  was  a  silence.  After  a  while  she  began  again, 
still  crying: 


312  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  I  felt  it  only  right  to  tell  Pat  I  was  in  love  with 
Humphrey.  I  expected  he  would  divorce  me." 

"And  he  hasn't?" 

"  It  was  only  last  night." 

"  These  things  are  done  so  quickly  in  America,"  I  mur- 
mured. 

"  How  horrid  you  are  to  make  fun  of  it !  I  mean  that 
Pat  refused." 

"  Oh ! " 

"  He  won't  let  me  go.  He  swore  it  by  a  lot  of  Irish 
saints." 

"  Then  that's  settled." 

"  Oh  no,"  she  contradicted  quickly. 

There  was  another  silence.  She  began  wandering  dis- 
consolately round  the  room.  Presently  she  stopped  be- 
fore the  glass  and  straightened  her  hat  and  gave  little  pats 
to  the  golden  loops  of  her  hair.  As  though  drawing 
courage  from  her  reflection,  she  began  powdering  her  nose 
and  talking  at  the  same  time. 

"  Humphrey  says  it's  impossible  for  us  to  marry  —  but 
what  do  you  say?  You  don't  want  to  live  with  him,  do 
you  —  after  —  after  all  this  —  now  that  he's  in  love  with 
me?"  I  stared  at  the  incredible  vulgarity  of  her.  She 
went  on  giving  little  dainty  dabs  to  her  nose  with  my 
powder-puff. 

"  You  know  quite  well  that  it's  not  my  will  that  stands 
in  your  way." 

"  You  mean  Pat,  then?  Oh,  I  could  divorce  him  if  he 
won't  me.  There's  plenty  of  evidence  —  enough,  any- 
way." 

"  I  don't  mean  Pat  —  I  mean  Binky.  I  couldn't  divorce 
Binky  if  I  wanted  to."  I  mused  a  moment  over  the 
quality  of  her  mind  that  so  easily  visualized  the  double 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  313 

divorce  business.  It  came  over  me  with  relief  that  I 
couldn't  and  needn't  explain  to  her.  "In  any  case,"  I 
went  on  almost  joyfully,  "  I  don't  want  to  divorce  Binky, 
and  I'm  not  going  to.  You  can  come  over  and  live  with 
him  if  you  like.  He  has  several  houses  —  I  sha'n't  in- 
terfere." 

It  took  her  breath  away. 

"  Do  you  think  —  do  you  think  for  one  minute  —  I 
would  be  —  be  his  mistress  ?  Do  you  think ?  " 

"  No,  I  didn't  really  think  you  would.  I  know  you're 
excessively  moral.  Your  beastliness  is  quite  another  sort 
of  thing."  I  sat  up  in  bed.  I  was  sick  of  her.  What 
difference  did  it  make  to  me  whether  Patrick  beat  his  cook 
or  his  wife?  "You  are  only  a  fiend,  my  dear,  not  an 
immoral  woman.  You  like  to  drive  men  out  of  their 
wits,  but  you  don't  care  about  satisfying  their  wants.  If 
I  had  any  hope  of  your  ever  going  to  bed  with  Binky,  I 
shouldn't  be  so  hard  on  you." 

It  was  then,  while  Phyllis  was  staring  at  me  with  her 
mouth  open,  aghast  at  my  hideous  language,  that  Louise 
came  in  on  top  of  us.  I  looked  at  her.  It  was  too  much 
for  me.  I  gave  a  kind  of  hysterical  yell  of  laughter,  and 
grabbed  my  towelled  head  in  my  hands.  "And  here's 
Louise,"  I  cried.  "  What's  up  with  Louise  ?  Why  do 
you  all  come  to  me  ?  What  can  I  do  for  you  ?  For  God's 
sake  leave  me  alone !  I've  got  a  headache." 

My  violence  brought  them  together.  They  stood  side 
by  side  facing  me,  grave  and  frightened.  I  laughed  at 
them.  They  didn't  like  my  laughing  at  them.  They  were 
so  upset  by  it  that  they  forgot  they  hated  each  other. 
"  What's  the  matter,  Louise?  "  I  shouted.  "  Out  with  it. 
What's  the  matter?  "  The  noise  I  made  seemed  to  pro- 
duce a  kind  of  explosion  in  her  brain. 


314          THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  Jim's  gone  away,"  she  blurted  out.  "  Gone,  I  mean, 
in  a  rage  —  I  don't  know  where !  "  Then  she  caught  her- 
self, but  it  was  too  late. 

"  Good  Lord,  what  a  mess  we're  all  in !  "  I  threw  my- 
self back  on  the  pillows.  "  What  a  mess !  What  a 
mess ! "  They  were  speechless.  I  sat  up  again,  after  a 
minute,  and  looked  at  them.  Louise  had  on  a  black  velvet 
thing  trimmed  with  brown  fur  by  Cherrut.  Hec  hat  was 
a  tilted  bowl  fringed  with  ospreys  from  Georgette's. 
Phyllis  had  over  her  frock  the  most  luxurious  of  chin- 
chilla coats.  It  reached  down  to  her  ankles.  Very  good 
pearl  ear-rings  gleamed  in  her  little  ears.  The  powder- 
puff  had  restored  her  face  to  at  least  a  passable  beauty. 

"  Man  judgeth  by  the  outward  appearance,  but  the 
Lord  looketh  on  the  heart.  I  don't  know  if  that's  the 
exact  way  it  goes." 

"  You're  not  going  crazy,  are  you  ?  "  asked  Phyllis. 

"  I  don't  know.  Do  you  remember  our  triumphirate  ? 
Poor  little  triumphirate!  It's  a  funny  thing,  but  I  be- 
lieved in  it  until  four  months  ago,  until  I  came  home  to 
this  damned  city."  I  could  hear  Claire  Hobbes'  voice  as 
I  spoke.  I  seemed  to  be  talking  as  she  did.  I  had  a 
feeling  of  kinship  with  her,  in  that  moment.  I  thought, 
with  relief,  that  I  was  going  back  to  the  land  where  she 
was,  where  people  knew  a  little  bit  what  the  things  in 
this  world  meant,  and  what  they  were  worth.  Her  hard- 
ness and  her  brutality  seemed  of  a  sudden  fine  to  me,  in 
the  face  of  those  two  fluffy  little  conventional  devils 
standing  there. 

"  I'm  going  back.  I'm  going  to  follow  Binky  back 
there.  I  can't  do  anything  more  for  you  —  I'm  not  going 
to  help  either  of  you."  I  glared  at  them. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  315 

"  But,  Joan,"  gasped  Louise,  "  you  don't  seem  to  un- 
derstand !  Jim  has  gone !  " 

"  Let  him  go,  then." 

41  And  I  thought  —  I  thought  you  and  your  hus- 
band  " 

"  Never  mind.  Never  mind.  Don't  think.  Don't 
ever  think  any  more.  It's  bad  for  you.  I've  got  a  head- 
ache. Go  away.  Leave  me  alone.  Go  and  buy  some 
more  clothes,  both  of  you.  You're  not  fit  to  be  seen. 
Go  and  get  your  husbands  to  forgive  you  and  buy  you 
some  more  jewels."  I  must  have  been  very  rude.  I 
piled  it  on.  I  wanted  to  get  them  out  of  the  room.  It 
was  very  annoying  to  me  to  see  them  there  so  smart,  so 
empty,  so  reeking  with  luxury  and  so  intent  on  the  idea 
of  being  tragic  heroines. 

"  Before  I  go  I  must  ask  you  one  or  two  questions." 
Louise  pursed  her  mouth.  She  looked  very  determined. 
"  Do  you  know  where  Jim  is  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Did  you  know  he'd  gone  away  ?  " 

44  No." 

44  Well,  then,  did  you  plan  your  house-party  on  pur- 
pose because  I  was  away  ?  " 

"  No !  "  I  shouted.  "  What  on  earth  are  you  driving 
at?" 

Louise  maintained  her  dignity  and  quiet  beautifully. 
"  You  knew  quite  well  that  he  wouldn't  have  gone  if  I'd 
been  home." 

"You  mean  that  you  wouldn't  have,  because  I  was 
there !  "  said  Phyllis. 

Louise  lifted  her  chin.     "Never  mind  what  I  mean." 

Phyllis  gave  a  little  snort.     "  I  don't  mind,  my  poor 


316  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

angel.  It's  all  so  obvious."  Phyllis  was  cleverer  than 
Louise  always,  and  Louise  knew  it.  She  kept  her  eyes  on 
me. 

"  Remember,  Joan,"  she  said  solemnly.  "  If  Jim  has 
really  gone  —  I  hold  you  responsible.  I  make  no  accusa- 
tions, but  I  hold  you  responsible."  Her  manner  was  too 
funny.  It  was  just  as  solemn  as  it  used  to  be  when  she 
was  a  little  stupid  girl.  She  stared  at  me  with  her  ob- 
tuse blue  eyes,  and  I  waited  for  her  finger  to  go  into  her 
mouth  as  it  used  to  do.  I  watched  her  curiously.  She 
was  so  interesting  to  me  as  her  mother's  product,  that  I 
didn't  think  of  answering  her.  "  I  always  believed  in 
you,  Joan,"  she  said.  "  I  always  believed  in  our  friend- 
ship. If  there's  one  thing  I  cannot  forgive,  it's  in- 
sincerity and  treachery."  She  swept  to  the  door.  She 
opened  it  gracefully,  and  with  a  toss  of  her  smart  veiled 
head,  went  out  of  it. 

"  Cat !  "  snapped  Phyllis,  as  she  disappeared.  It  was 
the  finishing  touch.  It  made  all  the  past  echo  dreadfully. 
It  made  the  whole  thing  incredibly  real.  It  brought  all 
that  childhood  of  ours  into  focus.  I  closed  my  eyes 
dizzily.  "  Do  go  home,  Phil,"  I  murmured.  "  I  truly 
can't  stand  any  more." 

"  I  can't,  Joan.     I'm  afraid." 

"  He  won't  beat  you  a  second  time." 

"  He  might."     She  was  really  frightened. 

"  Well,  if  you  can't  go  home,  go  somewhere  else,  go  to 
New  York,  Denver,  Bermuda.  There  are  lots  of  cosy 
refuges  for  runaway  wives  on  this  earth." 

"  I  haven't  any  money." 

"  I'll  lend  you  some." 

"  I  couldn't  let  you.     I  couldn't." 

"Well,  then " 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  317 

She  hesitated.  She  was  thinking  rapidly.  Of  course 
she  had  known  all  the  time  she  would  have  to  stay  with 
Pat  till  Binky  came  for  her,  or  something  wonderful 
happened. 

"  Couldn't  you  speak  to  Pat  ?  "  she  asked  at  last. 

"I?" 

"  Yes  —  he  respects  you.     He  admires  you !  " 

"Indeed?" 

"  Yes  —  he  said  if  it  weren't  for  you  he'd  have  horse- 
whipped Humphrey." 

"  I  don't  believe  it !  " 

"  It's  true.     He  does  admire  you  most  awfully." 

"  \Vell  —  I  refuse  —  anyhow.  What  could  I  say  to 
him  ?  It's  preposterous !  " 

"  You  could  say  you  thought  —  that  considering  we  — 
Humphrey  and  I  —  loved  each  other,  and  that  you  didn't 
care,  you  and  he  ought  to  see  us  through." 

I  burst  out  laughing.  I  laughed  very  loud.  I  couldn't 
stop.  She  left  me,  still  at  it. 


CHAPTER  TEN 

THERE  doesn't  seem  to  be  any  particular  point 
in  going  over  the  history  of  the  next  three  years. 
I  want  to  skip  all  that.     I  don't  like  the  subject 
very  much.     It's  not  interesting  because  no  human  pas- 
sions were  involved,  and  now,  with  the  front  page  of  The 
Times  sprawling  on  the  floor  and  the  "  Killed  in  Action 
Column  "  staring  up  at  me,  it  all  seems  incredibly  trivial 
and  silly. 

Having  taken  a  high  line  with  Binky  and  Binky's  Des- 
tiny —  spelled  to  me  with  a  capital  D  —  I  found  it  wasn't 
possible  to  keep  it  high.  Being  a  duchess  doesn't  con- 
stitute an  occupation,  and  I  am  one  of  those  people  who 
ought  to  have  an  occupation.  I  should  have  made  a 
good  stenographer  or  cook  or  housemaid,  a  good  any- 
thing that  meant  hard  work.  I  haven't  a  flair  for  idleness. 
I  don't  loaf  gracefully.  After  we  had  come  back  and 
moved  in,  there  seemed  very  little  for  Binky  and  me  to 
do,  except  amuse  ourselves.  We  did  that  energetically 
enough,  certainly.  We  did  it  sometimes  together  and 
sometimes  separately.  Binky  didn't  go  to  dances  with  me 
because  he  doesn't  like  dancing,  or  to  what  we  called 
"  Bohemian "  parties,  because  he  didn't  like  the  long- 
haired lot.  I  didn't  go  racing  with  him  because  I  don't 
like  racing.  But  we  lived  in  the  same  house  most  of  the 
time,  and  we  went  at  the  same  time  to  other  people's 
houses.  We  had  a  number  of  common  friends.  In  a 

318 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  319 

country  where  happy  people  do  their  best  not  to  appear 
happy,  and  where  loving  couples  succeed  in  pretending 
to  dislike  each  other,  we  passed  for  almost  anything  that 
people  might  want  to  think  about  us.  Aunt  Cora  had 
no  fault  to  find  with  our  behaviour.  She  was  the  nearest 
thing  to  a  parent  that  we  had  in  the  country,  and  as  long 
as  our  public  performances  were  sufficiently  dignified,  she 
didn't  seem  to  bother  about  what  we  did  in  private.  She 
demanded,  of  course,  a  certain  amount  of  attention.  We 
faithfully  ate  her  roast  mutton  once  a  week  when  we 
were  in  town.  Indeed,  Binky  was  very  charming  with 
her.  He  used  to  consult  her  on  the  problems  of  the  Turf. 
She  advised  him  about  favourites.  They  used  to  hobnob 
together  cosily  in  Cadogan  Square  over  a  couple  of  glasses 
of  her  oldest  and  nicest  port,  while  I  retired  upstairs  with 
Clem  and  Monica.  You  can  fill  in  for  yourself  a  good 
deal  about  me,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  became  quite 
habituated  to  the  company  of  Clem  and  Monica.  We 
were  as  thick  as  such  thieves  could  be.  We  thieved 
together  continually,  poking  about  in  funny  corners  after 
every  kind  of  curious  relationship  and  sensation.  We  did 
lots  of  forbidden  vulgar  things,  and  created  confusion 
in  a  number  of  well-ordered  bourgeois  households  and 
contented  Bohemian  camps.  Clem  used  to  like  to  pick 
men  out  of  their  comfortable  little  middle-class  places  and 
make  them  giddy  in  her  whirl  for  a  bit.  It  was  rather 
cruel  of  her !  She  always  dropped  them  quite  suddenly 
when  they  showed  signs  of  becoming  nuisances.  She  and 
Phyllis  are  something  alike,  I  suppose.  Only  Clem  had 
never  any  ulterior  motive.  Her  one  reason  for  every- 
thing was  boredom.  I  used  to  marvel  at  the  way  she 
escaped  from  her  victims  without  even  singeing  her 
fingers.  I  quite  frequently  burnt  mine.  People  con- 


320  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

tinued  to  be  disturbing  to  me.  I  never  reached  Clem's 
perfect  detachment.  Human  beings  failed  to  become  for 
me  grotesque  or  pretty  mannikins.  I  was  for  ever  seeing 
possibilities  in  the  affair.  It  was  all  very  stupid.  I  was 
looking  for  some  really  interesting  person,  and  I  used  to 
go  farther  than  Clem  before  I  was  tired.  It  took  more  to 
disgust  me.  And,  as  I  say,  I  was  continually  getting 
scorched,  so  that  I  got  to  like  being  scorched.  I  felt  cold 
and  tired  if  I  weren't  playing  with  fire.  I  burned  myself 
quite  badly  sometimes. 

Joseph  was  the  poet  that  Clem  and  Monica  took  up. 
They  handed  him  over  to  me.  He  was  half,  or  a  quarter, 
Roumanian  Jew,  connected  with  some  good  people  in  the 
Balkans  on  his  father's  side,  if  you  can  speak  of  good 
people  in  the  Balkans.  I  suppose  there  are  some.  At 
least  his  had  been  wild  little  princes  once,  so  he  told  me. 
If  so,  I  don't  quite  see  where  the  Jew  came  in.  How- 
ever, his  mother  was  Irish,  and  she  had  made  him  quite 
beautiful,  beautiful  enough  to  delude  me,  anyway.  His 
nose  was  very  slightly  hooked.  He  had  a  fine  head  and 
eyes,  very  intelligent,  luminous. 

Binky  didn't  like  him  at  all.  His  being  a  poet  and  a 
Jew  was  enough  to  explain  that.  If  he  had  been  an  artist 
with  a  studio,  and  something  to  show  01.  the  walls, 
Binky  wouldn't  have  minded  so  much.  He  had  been  to 
studios  occasionally,  and  he  acknowledged  that  that  sort 
of  thing  might  amuse  some  people.  But  a  poet !  There 
was  positively  no  place  in  the  world  for  a  poet,  unless  it 
was  a  graveyard.  He  had  heard  of  the  Poets'  Corner  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  and  he  was  prepared  to  admit,  on 
the  evidence  of  tombstones  and  libraries,  that  there  had 
been  respectable  persons,  once  upon  a  time,  who  wrote 
verse ;  but  when  a  seedy-looking  young  man  with  a  wild, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  321 

shy  look  in  his  eyes  appeared  from  the  Tottenham  Court 
Road,  waving  ragged  bits  of  paper,  it  was  too  much. 
Once  he  came  upon  Joseph  reading  aloud  in  the  drawing- 
room  to  a  group  of  us.  Joseph  was  pale  and  calm  through 
the  ordeal,  but  Binky  was  quite  flustered. 

"  My  dear,"  he  blurted  out,  after  they  had  fled  from 
him,  "he's  greasy  — he's  dirty!  How  can  you?"  He 
was  speechless. 

"He  has  a  delightful  mind,"  I  argued,  "if  his  finger- 
nails are  black ! " 

"  Good  Lord ! '  said  Binky.     "  Good  Lord !  " 

"  Would  you  rather  not  have  him  come  here?" 

"  As  for  that,  my  dear,  you  must  please  yourself.     If 

he  amuses  you Just  so  long  as  you  don't  ask  me  to 

sit  at  the  table  with  him.     Ugh !  " 

Joseph  didn't  amuse  me.  It  was  something  more  in- 
triguing and  painful  than  that.  Ruffles  amused  me  when 
he  had  his  innings.  Joseph  disturbed  me.  He  suggested 
to  me  ambitions  and  regrets.  He  made  me  want  to  cut 
loose.  He  held  out  a  promise  of  a  beautiful,  brilliant  ab- 
straction called  "truth." 

I'm  sure  Binky  thought  my  interest  in  him  was  vulgar, 
but  I  am  not  ashamed  of  it.  I  am  only  ashamed  of  not 
seeing  it  through;  of  not,  in  very  plain  language,  having 
made  him  a  friend.  I  have  called  my  affair  with  him  my 
last  adventure,  because  it  was  my  last  journey  after  an 
idea,  the  last  time  that  I  showed  any  courage  on  behalf 
of  an  impulse.  He  was  strange  to  me,  and  for  a  time 
wonderful,  and  I  gave  myself  extravagantly  to  his 
strangeness.  I  spent  hours  with  him  every  day,  listening 
to  his  curious  poems  and  his  more  curious  talk.  I 
dropped  my  friends  and  my  amusements  in  order  to  be 
with  him,  and  I  forgave  his  ragged  hair  and  unwashed 


322  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

hands  because  of  his  beautiful  ideas.  I  don't  know 
whether  he  was  a  genius  or  not.  If  being  very  poor  and 
very  irregular  in  one's  habits,  if  having  lots  of  enemies 
and  a  small  crowd  of  idealistic  adorers,  and  no  public  for 
one's  poems,  if  these  are  signs  of  genius,  he  certainly  had 
them.  But  I  don't  know.  I  don't  know  anything  about 
geniuses.  I  only  know  that  Joseph  used  to  say  things 
that  illumined  the  world  strangely,  that  gave  one  a  sense 
of  something  more  than  reality,  and  that  his  poems  dis- 
turbed me.  He  made  me  feel  myself  a  stupid  fool,  and 
I  clung  to  him  and  lived  for  a  time  on  the  stimulus  of  his 
magnetism. 

But  I  overdid  it.  I  gave  him  money.  He  must  have 
laid  up  quite  a  balance  in  the  bank  during  those  days.  It 
seems  incredible.  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  get  back  into 
that  state  of  mind,  but  I  remember  that  I  had  the  idea 
of  adopting  him,  and  of  mentioning  him  in  my  will.  I 
went  to  him  prepared  to  suggest  it.  I  actually  sought  him 
out  in  his  cave  in  the  north  of  London,  with  the  purpose 
of  discussing  it.  I  remember  perfectly  hurrying  up 
through  the  Park  to  the  Marble  Arch,  and  taking  a  bus 
from  there.  I  remember  the  look  of  the  streets  and 
every  incident  of  my  mad  journey,  but  I  can't  remember 
very  well  what  I  felt  like.  I  don't  know  why  I  took  a 
bus  instead  of  a  taxi  —  to  put  myself  more  on  a  plane 
with  him,  I  suppose.  Oxford  Street  was  extraordinarily 
full  of  people,  all  spending  money.  Joseph's  poverty  and 
arrogance  distressed  and  pleased  me.  He  always  ac- 
cepted a  loan  with  a  furious,  resentful  air. 

I  walked  the  last  part  of  the  way.  He  lived  in  a  block 
of  dingy  flats,  at  the  top  of  the  house.  The  door  of  the 
building  was  opened.  The  stuffy  vestibule  was  empty. 
Nevertheless  it  seemed  a  feat  of  great  difficulty  and  dar- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  323 

ing  to  turn  into  that  gaping  door  between  the  two  sets  of 
soiled,  flanking  windows.  I  climbed  the  five  flights  of 
stairs  in  the  semi-darkness,  unmolested  except  by  the 
smells  of  cheap  cooking  and  bad  sewage.  The  landing  at 
the  top  of  the  stairs  was  very  untidy.  Bits  of  dirty  paper 
lay  there. 

I  rang  his  bell  and  rang  again,  and  then  found  a  key 
hanging  on  a  nail  by  the  door,  and  with  it  let  myself  in. 
At  the  end  of  the  narrow  passage  another  door  was  open, 
revealing  the  gruesome  interior  of  an  untidy  bedroom.  I 
was  staggered  for  a  moment  by  the  sight  of  lumped-up 
bedding  and  a  broken  water-jug.  The  front  room  was 
bare  of  both  comforts  and  horrors.  I  sat  down  there  on 
one  of  the  straight  chairs.  No  trimmings  in  the  room  — 
no  colour  —  Joseph  didn't  like  prettiness.  I  sat  looking 
out  of  the  window.  It  was  beginning  to  rain.  The  broad 
fagade  of  a  large  warehouse  cut  by  square  windows 
loomed  opposite.  He  had  told  me  that  he  had  chosen  the 
flat  because  of  the  exceeding  beauty  of  the  warehouse.  I 
couldn't  see  it,  but  I  wanted  to. 

He  kept  me  waiting  an  hour.  I  had  written  that  I  was 
coming  and  expected  to  find  him  waiting  for  me.  He 
gave  me  heaps  of  time  to  come  to  my  senses.  I  sat  there 
in  a  fever.  I  don't  know  why.  I  must  have  been  mad, 
but  there  it  is.  I  sat  there  waiting. 

He  had  never  said  he  loved  me.  We  had  never  in- 
dulged in  the  obvious.  That  was,  I  suppose,  the  trouble. 
His  reticence  had  too  disastrously  touched  my  imagination 
and  piqued  my  curiosity.  My  only  ground  for  seeking 
him  out,  and  expecting  to  be  welcome,  was  that  he  had 
come  to  me  constantly  for  three  months,  and  that  we 
were  not  bored. 

At  last,  after  waiting  an  hour,  I  went  into  the  other 


324  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

room  and  made  his  bed.  I  wonder  what  Binky  would 
say  if  I  told  him  I  once  made  up  the  bed  of  that  ob- 
jectionable poet?  I  was  busy  sweeping  the  floor  when  he 
came  in. 

"  That  damned  printer "  he  began,  showing  no  sur- 
prise at  what  I  was  doing.  We  went  into  the  front  room 
and  made  tea,  boiling  the  water  over  the  gas. 

"  Come  with  me  to  Budapest,"  he  flung  out  presently. 

"  I'd  like  to."  The  idea  seemed  very  attractive.  I 
remember  wondering  whether  one  couldn't,  in  a  disguise, 
take  the  road  with  him  for  a  little  while. 

"  I'm  going  next  month." 

"  It  would  be  fun."  I  was  tempted.  "  But  you'd  have 
more  fun  without  me." 

"  Not  if  you  didn't  mind  being  treated  with  a  certain 
simplicity." 

"  I  should  love  it !  I'm  bored."  I  laughed,  feeling  all 
too  serious. 

I  waited,  but  he  went  on  gulping  down  his  tea.  Hav- 
ing finished  the  large  cupful,  he  sat  looking  at  me  with  his 
shy,  searching  eyes.  Then  he  came  and  kissed  me.  It 
was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  kissed  me.  His  were 
strange,  quivering  kisses. 

I  gave  myself  up  to  them,  wondering,  while  he  crushed 
my  face  in  his  hands  and  hurt  it  with  his  lips,  wondering 
why  it  was  that  decent  people  had  in  them  no  fire  and  no 
poetry.  It  occurred  to  me  that  he  had  learned  this  mode 
of  love-making  in  the  gutter.  I  tore  myself  from  him  at 
last,  and  went  to  the  window  and  looked  down  into  the 
muddy  street. 

"  Well  ?  "  he  brought  out  curtly. 

"Well?  "I  echoed. 

"  You're  too  dreadfully  civilized,"  he  muttered. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  325 

I  saw  that  I  had  come  there  to  find  out  just  that  very 
thing,  and  that  my  other  idea  was  an  excuse. 

"  I  would  like  to  help  you,"  I  said,  "  and  then  drop  it." 
He  grunted,  vaguely  irritated. 

"  What  do  you  want  most  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  A  thousand  pounds,"  he  shouted,  laughing. 

"  Very  well."  I  turned  and  watched  him.  I  saw  him 
weighing  it  in  his  mind. 

"  And  then  ?  "  he  asked  curiously. 

"  Ah !  then  I  shall  have  you  off  my  conscience."  I 
left  him  with  that.  I  don't  remember  anything  else.  I 
actually  did  send  him  the  money  and  he  took  it.  I  am 
still  wondering  about  his  genius.  If,  in  another  hundred 
years,  he  is  admitted  as  such,  I  suppose  I  shall  look  down 
from  Heaven  and  feel  it  was  not  quite  shameful.  I  didn't 
see  him  again.  He  went,  I  suppose,  to  Budapest,  and  did 
himself  very  well.  That's  all  there  was  to  the  Joseph 
affair.  I  put  it  down  as  it  happened. 

It's  curious  what  people  will  do  when  they  feel  secure. 
We  were  annoyed  with  the  world  for  working  so 
smoothly,  and  we  tried  to  upset  it  a  little,  or  at  least  to 
make  it  appear  a  little  upset.  We  enjoyed  doing  things 
backwards  and  upside  down.  Our  amusement  consisted 
chiefly,  as  far  as  I  remember  it,  in,  figuratively  speaking, 
standing  on  our  heads  and  walking  on  our  hands.  I  re- 
member introducing  an  era  of  Chinese  customs  as  re- 
garded meals.  My  dinners  for  some  months  began  with 
sweets  and  ended  with  boiled  rice,  as  theirs  do.  I  had  the 
happy  idea  one  day  at  lunch.  We  didn't  go  in  for  chop- 
sticks, but  we  had  one  dish  for  each  course  set  in  the 
middle  of  the  table,  and  all  dipped  into  it  with  long  spoons 
and  forks.  Eight  was  the  largest  number  one  could  man- 
age that  way.  People  liked  to  come  to  my  octettes. 


326  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

Chronologically  it  conies  in  about  the  same  time  as  the 
death  of  Louise's  little  girl.  It  was  just  after  that  scene 
in  Joseph's  room,  that  she  began  to  write  to  me  those 
letters  that  make  me  think  now  that  she  was  beginning 
to  find  herself  during  the  last  year  of  her  life.  One  can't 
somehow  get  away  from  phrases  like  "  finding  one's  self." 
They  don't  mean  very  much,  but  what  else  is  one  to  call 
that  growth  in  Louise's  mind  ?  I  wrote  to  her  when  little 
Lou  died,  and  she  answered  me  and  went  on  writing. 

Her  letters  were  extravagant,  of  course,  and  affected. 
Their  affectation  nearly  smothered  the  other  thing,  the 
real  little  interest  she  was  beginning  to  feel  in  human 
beings.  Now  and  then  *she  gave  me  little  bits  about 
quaint  people  she  was  meeting.  Once  she  wrote  about 
a  sunset  in  the  harbour  of  Yokohama.  She  spoke  of  the 
limp  sails  of  the  sampans  like  the  broken  wings  of  birds 
that  had  lighted  there  to  die.  She  didn't  say  that  she 
felt  like  one  herself ;  that  was  what  struck  me.  It  was 
the  thing  she  might  so  obviously  have  said  that  her  little 
reticence  seemed  portentous,  and  it  was  queer,  too,  for 
Louise  to  notice  a  sunset.  She  had  never  been  senti- 
mental. Sometimes  she  alluded  to  Jim.  Jim  was  so 
awfully  sweet.  She  was  sure  of  his  love.  That  had  all 
too  many  echoes,  had  been  said  by  her  too  many  times, 
but  then  she  followed  it  up  by  announcing  that  she  had 
never  understood  before  how  nervous  he  was.  She  said 
that  sometimes  she  was  frightened,  and  wondered  if  there 
was  insanity  in  his  family.  Shortly  after  this  she  an- 
nounced she  was  going  to  see  his  mother  when  they  got 
round  to  Italy.  And  she  did. go.  She  left  him  in  Rome 
and  went  back  there  alone.  She  wrote  to  me  that  she'd 
had  a  long  talk  with  his  mother,  and  she  didn't  tell  me  one 
word  of  what  was  said  between  them.  I  gather,  how- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN        .   327 

ever,  that  the  older  woman  didn't  encourage  her  in  the 
belief  that  Jim  might  some  day  go  off  his  head.  I  wish 
she  had.  It  would  have  been  good  for  them  both  if 
Louise  had  been  frightened.  I  expect  his  mother  felt 
that  too,  afterwards.  She,  too,  wrote  to  me  once,  because, 
I  suppose,  it  had  happened  in  my  house.  She  wrote  to 
ask  where  he  had  disappeared  to.  I  couldn't  tell  her.  I 
don't  know  whether  she  tried  to  track  him  down  or  not. 
I  don't  know  how  much  she  knew  or  suspected.  She 
couldn't  have  heard  the  facts  from  any  one.  No  one 
ever  knew  the  facts  but  Binky  and  Britton  and  myself 
and  Claire  Hobbes.  The  other  people  in  the  house  could 
only  suspect,  and  they,  I  feel  sure,  never  voiced  their 
suspicions.  Binky  saw  them  all  off  that  next  morning, 
and  must  have  made  it  clear  to  them  that  this  thing  must 
for  ever  be  a  mystery  to  them,  and  dumbness  concerning 
it,  a  responsibility  for  ever. 

Of  course  if  Britton  hadn't  been  there  I  don't  suppose 
we  should  have  hushed  it  up  with  such  absolute  success. 
He  managed  that  part  somehow.  I  don't  know  what  he 
did  —  but  I  seem  to  have  an  impression  of  him,  an  over- 
powering silent  figure  guarding  the  castle  and  all  of  us 
who  were  huddled  in  it.  There  was  just  that  little  notice 
that  Claire  Hobbes  wrote  out  for  me,  saying  that  Mrs. 
James  Van  Orden  of  Iroquois,  U.S.A.,  had  died  very  sud- 
denly from  a  heart  attack  at  Saracens,  on  the  loth  of 
September,  1912. 

We  couldn't,  of  course,  muzzle  the  American  press,  but 
we  managed  to  put  them  quite  on  the  wrong  track,  and 
all  their  idiotic  stuff  didn't  do  any  harm. 

"  Let  them  rave  about  you  and  your  friendship,  and 
the  tragedy  of  this  sudden  illness,  and  the  heart-trouble 
in  her  poor  family  as  much  as  they  like,"  said  Claire. 


328  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  It  keeps  people  from  asking  questions.  That's  all  we 
want.  It  covers  him  up  and  his  flight.  Let  them  pile  it 
on  —  the  more  the  better." 

Claire  saw  me  through  those  days.  She  stayed  alone 
with  Binky  and  me  for  a  fortnight.  And  she  kept  Britton 
there  for  a  week,  in  the  face  of  a  clamouring  War  Office. 
I  don't  know  what  awful  things  happened  to  the  poor  old 
army.  It  was  just  the  time  of  that  Morocco  business. 
But  Claire  said  Britton  would  make  a  fourth  at  bridge, 
and  so  she  kept  him,  and  the  three  of  them  sat  up  with  me 
all  night,  for  six  nights,  playing  bridge.  It  was  good  of 
them.  I  could  lie  down  in  the  day-time  with  the  windows 
open  and  the  sun  shining  in.  The  sun  did  shine.  That 
was  good  too.  I'm  grateful  to  God  for  that  week  of 
sun! 

And  I'm  grateful  to  Ruffles  too.  He  saw  Jim  as  far  as 
Paris.  He  stuck  to  him  until  he  was  quite  certain  that 
he  wasn't  going  to  blow  his  brains  out,  and  then  he  came 
and  told  me  how  he'd  seen  the  last  of  him.  I  don't  know 
that  his  going  off  with  Jim  did  any  good.  Jim  probably 
wouldn't  have  done  anything  violent,  anyway.  All  his 
violence  was  spent.  He  was  already  dead  —  and  if  he 
had  wanted  to  kill  himself,  it  would  have  been  just  as 
well  to  let  him.  But  I'm  grateful  to  Ruffles.  He  pro- 
tected Jim.  He  kept  the  reporters  off  him,  and  hid  him 
from  view  till  he  could  hide  himself. 

You  see  how  it  is  that  I've  come  to  like  Claire  and 
Binky.  They  played  up  so  awfully  well.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  very  casual  way  in  which  Binky  arranged  for 
the  burial,  and  Claire  saw  to  the  laying-out  of  that  poor 
dead  Louise,  and  the  packing  up  of  her  clothes  and  the 
sending  back  of  her  jewellery  to  Mrs.  Bowers.  And 
then,  you  know,  Binky  actually  went  to  America  to  see 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  329 

Mrs.  Bowers.  It  was  only  that  that  stopped  her  from 
coming  over.  After  the  third  cable  from  her,  we  saw 
that  nothing  could  stop  her  but  somebody's  going.  We 
sat  with  it  spread  out  before  us,  two  pages  of  cablegram. 
It  was  addressed  to  Jim. 

"  Must  know  details.  Greatly  distressed  that  you  won't 
bring  body  home.  Am  told  cannot  force  you  to  do  so  by 
law.  Don't  understand.  Propose  to  sail  on  the  Maure- 
tania  next  Saturday.  Will  the  Duchess  receive  me?" 
And  a  lot  more.  This  had  arrived  the  day  Ruffles  got 
back  from  Paris.  I  stared  at  the  words :  "  Will  the 
Duchess  receive  me  ?  " 

"  What  does  she  mean  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Who  is  she  talk- 
ing about  ?  Receive  her  how  ?  " 

"  She  means  you,  dear,"  said  Binky,  as  though  he  were 
talking  to  a  sick  little  child.  "  She  means,  will  you  let 
her  come  here?" 

He  put  a  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  rubbed  his  face 
against  mine,  as  we  stared  at  the  cable. 

"  Oh !  "  I  said. 

"  Nothing  will  stop  her  but  somebody's  going,"  said 
Claire. 

"  I'm  going,"  said  Binky. 

"  Then  who  will  stay  with  me  ?  "  I  asked.  I  must  have 
been  ill,  I  suppose. 

"Who  would  you  like?" 

*'  I  don't  know."  I  wondered  about  it.  "  I'd  like 
Claire  and  Aunt  Cora,"  I  said  after  a  minute. 

"  That  will  be  all  right,  then,"  said  Binky,  moving  away 
a  little,  but  I  remember  holding  on  to  him,  so  he  sat  down 
again,  taking  my  hand.  We  were  on  the  terrace  in  the 
sun.  Binky  was  very  nice  to  me  during  those  days. 
He  used  to  tie  the  towel  round  my  head  when  it  ached, 


330  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

and  he  could  pull  it  tighter  than  any  one  else.  And  he 
would  rub  my  feet  when  they  were  cold.  And  he  brought 
me  my  tea,  taking  the  tray  from  the  servant  at  the  door 
of  my  room.  I  couldn't  bear  servants  to  come  into  my 
room.  It  was  such  an  effort  to  look  at  them.  But  I 
liked  having  Binky  there.  He  did  many  little  things  for 
me,  and  then  he  did  that  big  thing.  He  went  to  Iroquois 
and  saw  Mrs.  Bowers  and  my  father.  He  kept  Mrs. 
Bowers  away  and  he  brought  my  father  back  with  him. 
So  you  see,  he  must  have  managed  it  very  well.  My 
father  hadn't  been  to  see  us  since  we  had  left  Iroquois 
three  years  before.  It  was  the  nicest  thing  Binky  could 
have  done  —  bringing  my  father  to  me,  himself. 

I  don't  know  how  much  Binky  told  him.  He  may  have 
told  him  everything ;  I  mean  he  may  have  told  him  exactly 
what  happened.  I  don't  know.  Anyway,  he  gave  him  to 
understand  that  he,  Binky,  was  very  much  frightened 
about  me,  and  my  father  came.  I  believe  Binky  thought 
I  might  go  insane.  He  need  not  have  been  so  frightened, 
but  I'm  glad  in  a  way  that  he  was.  It  showed  me  that 
he  was,  after  all,  vitally  concerned  in  my  welfare.  We 
all  seem  to  have  been  frightened.  I  was  afraid  of  my 
father.  I  heard  the  car  come  up  to  the  door,  and  I  went 
out  into  the  hall  to  meet  them,  feeling  that  I  should  faint 
with  terror.  I  noticed  how  tall  my  father  was,  taller  even 
than  Binky,  and  how  white  his  hair.  He  looked  for  a 
moment  like  a  stranger  —  and  I  thought,  "  He  has  come 
from  Iroquois.  He  has  come,  but  the  distance  between 
us  is  too  great.  The  separation  has  been  too  much ;  my 
faithlessness  to  profound.  He  can't  bridge  it.  It's  im- 
possible." And  then  he  took  me  in  his  arms.  "  Joan, 
my  darling,"  he  said,  and  I  knew  all  at  once  that  I  was 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  331 

wrong,  and  I  knew,  too,  what  he  would  do  for  us.     He 
would  demand  that  we  should  repay  his  trust  in  us. 

He  stayed  a  month,  and  I  have  a  feeling  that  Sara- 
cens, in  all  the  years  of  its  existence,  has  never  held 
within  its  great  dramatic  walls  such  a  curious  piece  of 
time,  a  month  of  such  pregnant  stillness.  It  was  during 
those  days  as  if  we  existed  in  his  belief,  and  as  though, 
still  holding  us  up  to  it,  he  freed  us  from  ourselves,  our 
vulgarity  and  our  shame. 

He  knew  the  truth  about  us,  and  I  felt  that  I  was 
learning  it  from  him  for  the  first  time. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  house  but  Aunt  Cora,  my 
father  and  Binky  and  me.  I  have  no  memory  of  how 
the  days  passed,  but  I  remember  one  warm  sunny  day 
that  Aunt  Cora  sat  in  the  walled  garden  knitting,  my 
father  beside  her.  She  had  a  cloak  round  her  shoulders 
and  a  rug  over  her  knees,  and  her  knitting-needles  flashed 
in  the  sun.  Binky  and  I  watched  them  from  the  bottom 
of  the  garden. 

It  was  when  Binky  looked  at  me  and  said,  "  We  shall  . 
be  old  some  day,  and  what  shall  we  be  like?"  that  I 
realized  what  had  been  going  on  in  him  as  in  myself. 
We'd  been  thinking,  and  that  was  wonderful  in  itself,  and 
I  saw  too  that  we'd  been  thinking  honestly  —  he  on  his 
part  and  I  on  mine. 

"  You  know,"  I  said  to  Binky,  "  he  has  saved  us." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Binky  simply. 

I  can't  explain  my  father's  visit,  I  can  only  leave  it  to 

you. 

Last  August,  when  war  was  declared,  he  wanted  me  to 
come  to  America  with  the  children,  but  I  said  I  couldn't 
go  so  far  away  from  Binky  when  he  was  fighting  over 


332  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

there  in  Flanders.  My  father  must  have  taken  that  as 
the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecy.  I  suppose  it  was.  Any- 
way, I'm  glad  to  think  of  him  contented  again  about  me. 
He  is  an  old  man  now.  I  imagine  him  playing  patience 
every  night,  and  thinking,  not  too  vividly,  about  Binky 
and  the  war. 

Phyllis  wasn't  in  Iroquois  when  Binky  was  there,  that 
last  time,  but  it  wouldn't  have  mattered  if  she  had  been. 
I  don't  think  he  ever  wanted  to  see  her  again  after  that 
loth  of  September. 

There  isn't  any  one  that  he  cares  for  in  that  way  now. 
He  isn't  the  sort  that  cares  for  women  very  much.  There 
have  only  been  the  three  of  us,  Claire  and  Phyllis  and  I ; 
and  strangely  enough,  I  remain  near  to  him.  There  must 
be  something  in  marriage,  even  a  marriage  such  as  ours. 
It  lasts  out  and  holds  together  when  other  things  fly 
apart.  Binky  likes  me  best  now,  and  depends  on  me  for 
the  kind  of  help  that  he  needs  out  there.  He  wants  let- 
ters, lots  of  letters,  from  me.  If  he  doesn't  hear  twice  a 
week  he  thinks  himself  very  much  neglected.  He  likes 
me  to  tell  him  all  about  Arch  and  Humpy  and  the  dogs 
and  the  servants  and  the  weather  and  the  look  of  the 
pastures  and  the  condition  of  his  Highland  cattle  and 
what  horses  there  are  left.  His  face  is  old  now,  it  has 
the  war  written  on  it,  but  his  heart  has  become  the  heart 
of  a  child.  Poor  darling ! 


CHAPTER  ELEVEN 

NOW  that  I've  got  back  to  the  beginning,  the  night 
of  the  loth  of  September,  1913,  I  find  that  I've 
told  you  all  sorts  of  things,  almost  everything 
of  importance,  except  just  what  happened  that  night. 
I'm  afraid,  in  telling  the  story,  I've  got  into  rather  a 
muddle.  It's  so  difficult  to  keep  distinct  what  I  felt  and 
knew  at  various  times,  and  what  I  feel  and  know  now. 
Now  the  war  is  on  us,  and  my  chief  feeling  is  one  of 
fear,  not  any  definite  fear  of  Zeppelins  or  invasions,  but 
a  vague,  dreadful  fear,  an  acute  sense  of  insecurity.  The 
world  is  shaking,  and  its  convulsions  give  one  a  feeling 
of  having,  to  put  it  vulgarly,  gone  dotty.  It's  as  though 
I  saw  all  the  tables  and  chairs  in  my  room  moving  about 
and  falling  over.  Everything  that  was  stable  and  was 
made  to  hang  on  to,  and  sit  down  upon,  and  lean  against, 
is  lurching.  The  great  business  of  life  seems  to  be  to  sit 
tight,  but  one  has  a  suspicion  that  even  the  law  of  gravity 
may  be  loosed  and  that  we  shall  find  ourselves  falling  off 
the  earth.  Before  the  4th  of  August,  people  in  their 
secure  little  houses  were  enjoying  their  miseries  and  mak- 
ing capital  out  of  their  difficulties,  and  splendidly  gam- 
bling on  the  future  —  the  dark  future  that  seemed  so 
possible.  Now  it  is  all  changed.  It  appears  that  the 
conduct  of  life  is  largely  a  matter  of  unconscious  calcula- 
tions. One  says  good-bye  and  calculates  that  the  chances 
are  a  hundred  to  one,  that  one  will  meet  this  friend  again. 
But  when  I  said  good-bye  to  Binky  the  other  day  at  the 

333 


334  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

one  o'clock  from  Victoria,  the  chances  were  a  hundred  to 
one  against  his  coming  back.  It's  a  curious  thing  to 
have  all  the  mathematics  of  life  upset.  It  makes  one  feel 
like  being  in  a  mad-house.  The  laughter  of  Arch  and 
Humpy  rising  in  shrieks  from  the  gardens  seems  incredi- 
ble and  wonderful.  The  security  of  childhood  becomes 
the  most  precious  thing  on  earth. 

So  you  see  how  difficult  it  is  to  remember  what  my 
feelings  were  in  1913.  I  have  told  you  about  how  the 
American  quartette  descended  on  us  at  Saracens,  and  I've 
told  you  about  my  clairvoyant  moment  at  dinner,  when 
I  saw  through  them  all  as  though  an  X-ray  machine  had 
been  turned  on  them.  I  don't  want  to  go  into  all  the 
complex  impressions  of  their  personalities  and  the  queer, 
surcharged  atmosphere  that  their  minds  altogether  there, 
created  in  the  house,  because  Louise's  wretched  mind 
dominated  them  all  for  me  as  the  evening  went  on,  just 
as  her  voice  drowned  their  voices  and  her  tragedy  eclipsed 
their  little  troubles.  Phyllis  and  Binky  may  have  been 
under  a  strain ;  no  doubt  they  were.  Pat  may  have  been 
uncomfortable,  though  I  don't  believe  he  was.  Claire, 
undoubtedly,  drew  a  certain  sinister  satisfaction  from 
Phil's  helplessness.  But  all  those  things  scarcely  count  at 
all  compared  to  the  dreadful  tension  stretched  over  Louise 
and  Jim.  I  had  a  feeling  of  something  drawn  round 
them,  very  tight,  enclosing  them  in  a  space  like  the  inside 
of  a  balloon,  where  the  gases  of  their  misery  and  dis- 
trust swelled  to  bursting.  And  the  final  act  was  just  the 
bursting  of  a  bubble  that  had  been  strained  too  long. 
And  it  seems,  now,  scarcely  more  important  in  the  sum 
total  of  the  world's  tragedy  than  the  bursting  of  a  toy 
balloon,  buyable  for  a  penny,  and  in  competition  with 
the  roar  of  armaments,  scarcely  more  noisy. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  335 

And  yet,  if  we  are  immortals,  all  of  us,  then  it  was, 
of  course,  much  more  than  that,  and  the  amount  of  pain 
that  was  mine  afterward,  and  the  cowardly  giving  in  to 
the  hopeless  boredom  of  life  that  resulted  from  it,  all 
that  will  be  balanced  up  against  me,  I  suppose.  I  sup- 
pose my  giving  in  to  Ruffles,  when  I  knew  there  was 
nothing  in  it,  will  be  laid  up  against  me.  I  don't  know. 
I  don't  care  very  much.  It's  so  difficult  to  decide  whether 
that  sort  of  thing  really  matters.  To  my  father  it  would 
matter  so  terribly,  and  to  Binky  it  would  —  it  did  — 
matter  so  little.  I  could  never  tell  from  his  manner 
whether  he  accepted  it  in  knowledge  or  was  altogether 
unaware.  But  it's  curious  that  Louise  should  have  ac- 
cused me  of  the  thing  that  hadn't  happened  and  was  not 
going  to,  because  my  father  came  to  see  us. 

We  never  used  the  room  in  the  Round  Tower,  except 
as  a  kind  of  museum  or  rubbish-heap.  I  don't  believe 
any  one  had  used  it  for  anything  else  during  the  last  hun- 
dred years.  I  believe  it  was  the  original  dining-hall  in 
the  days  when  the  tower  was  the  whole  of  the  castle. 
The  fireplace  was  large  enough  to  roast  a  sheep  in  and 
had  old  iron  cranes  and  hooks  fastened  into  the  stone- 
work. The  walls  were  rough  stone  too,  discoloured  by 
smoke.  There  was  scarcely  any  furniture  in  it  beyond 
a  couple  of  old  settees  and  some  deep,  ragged  chairs,  and 
those  cases  of  relics  —  relics  from  all  sorts  of  wars  in 
all  sorts  of  countries.  I  never  took  any  interest  in  them, 
and  only  remember  a  medley  of  helmets  and  swords  and 
chain-armour  and  queer  coats  and  horns  and  plumes.  I 
have  always  had  a  feeling  that  there  must  be,  among  all 
those  things,  some  scalps  and  teeth  and  bones,  but  doubt- 
less I'm  wrong,  and  Binky's  family  has  always  been  too 
refined  to  bring  home  bits  of  its  enemies.  In  any  case, 


336  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  came  to  dislike  the  place.  The  windows  were  small 
and  deep-set,  with  iron  gratings  over  them  suggestive  of 
a  dungeon,  and  all  those  trophies  combined  to  oppress 
me  with  the  weight  of  too  much  family  history  whenever 
I  went  there.  I  thought  of  poor  little  Arch  and  Humpy 
inheriting  the  peculiarities  of  those  grotesque  plumes  and 
gloves.  It  was  opposite  the  wing  where  the  gun-rooms 
are,  and  where  Binky  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  time,  but 
I  scarcely  ever  went  there,  and  never  sat  there.  I  don't 
suppose  Jim  would  have  thought  of  it  as  a  possible  place 
to  hide  in  if  Phyllis,  after  going  rapturously  over  the 
whole  place,  hadn't  pounced  on  this  as  a  perfect  spot  for 
ghost  stories.  It  was  —  and  we  actually  did  spend  the 
hours  between  eleven  and  one  there,  on  the  night  before, 
the  night  of  the  9th  of  September.  That  was  the  first 
night  of  their  visit,  they  only  stayed  two.  Still,  I  don't 
understand  just  how  it  was  that  Jim  went  there.  It  was 
curious  his  finding  the  way.  One  had  to  go  down  long 
corridors  and  through  numerous  doors,  and  down  and 
up  several  little  flights  of  stairs.  The  very  fact  that  he 
did  slink  away  so  far,  shows  how  he  was  feeling.  A  dog, 
if  it  wants  to  hide,  will  take  a  lot  of  trouble  to  get  to  a 
safe  place,  I  suppose.  It  must  have  seemed  to  him  that 
it  was  only  by  going  through  all  those  doors  and  shutting 
them  carefully  after  him,  that  he  could  shut  out  the  sound 
of  Louise's  voice.  That  was  evidently  his  motive.  I 
don't  for  a  moment  believe  that  he  had  any  idea  of  blow- 
ing his  brains  out.  He  was  fond  of  guns  and  revol- 
vers. He  and  Binky  had  spent  two  hours  comparing 
notes  in  the  gun-room  that  same  afternoon.  I  remem- 
ber noticing,  when  I  came  on  him  there  by  the  great 
fireplace,  that  there  were  several  guns  lying  about.  He 
had  evidently  been  rummaging  in  the  room  opposite, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  337 

and  had  brought  them  across  where  there  was  more 
light.  Why  the  round-room  was  lighted  I  don't  know. 
The  servants  must  have  wanted  to  anticipate  every 
caprice  of  the  fair-haired  American  lady.  Anyhow  they 
had  lit  the  iron  lamps  and  built  up  a  big  log  fire,  though 
I  don't  suppose  even  their  unfortunate  zeal  had  led 
them  to  put  the  drinks  in  readiness  on  the  chance  of 
our  coming.  I  rather  think  Jim  must  have  asked  for  the 
whisky.  That's  another  funny  thing  —  he  always  hated 
whisky  —  and  so,  when  I  came  on  him  sunk  in  an  old 
chair  by  the  fire  with  a  gun  across  his  knees,  I  noticed 
at  once  the  decanter  and  the  empty  glass  and  the  full 
syphon.  I  noticed  everything  except  the  revolver  beside 
the  tray  at  his  elbow. 

The  impression  that  Louise  and  Jim  had  made  on  me 
when  they  arrived  was  the  more  painful  because  so 
unexpected.  She  was  more  than  ill  at  ease.  Her  effort 
was  more  than  just  an  effort  to  behave  well  before  a 
number  of  strange,  important  people.  It  was  an  effort  to 
prove  to  me  just  how  completely  successful  and  contented 
she  was  with  Jim.  And  his  was  an  effort  not  to  give  her 
away,  and  not  to  be  ashamed  of  her. 

I  had  not  seen  them  for  three  years,  and  her  letters 
had  made  me  think  they  were  happy  together.  I  don't 
mean  that  she  lied  to  me.  It  must  have  been  that 
she  really  thought  they  were  happier.  When  you  re- 
member the  rows  they  had  had,  it's  understandable  that 
she  should  think  the  comparative  peace  of  their  travels 
was  happiness.  She  had  been  making  love  to  him  after 
her  fashion  for  a  year,  and  she  felt  almost  sure  of  him 
this  time,  sure  enough,  anyway,  to  bring  him  to  Saracens, 
unless,  indeed,  her  coming  there  was  to  try  him.  How 
do  I  know?  How  can  I  tell?  I've  tried  to  think  it  out, 


338  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

but  it's  all  too  difficult.  I  can  see  that  her  grotesque 
vivacity  may  have  been  put  on  just  to  hide  her  misery, 
but  I  can't  tell  with  what  feelings  she  came  to  us  or 
with  what  intention.  Sometimes  I  think  that  the  invi- 
tation, with  what  it  promised  of  grandeur,  and  to  her 
it  did  seem  grand,  was  too  much  of  a  temptation,  and 
that  she  was  wretchedly  torn  between  her  desire  to  visit 
a  duke  in  his  castle  and  her  unwillingness  to  throw  Jim 
and  me  together.  If  that  is  the  case,  then  I  am  all  the 
more  sorry  for  her.  To  think  of  her  coming  there  all 
sore  with  the  anticipation  of  the  jealousy  she  knew 
would  torture  her,  and  yet  so  dreadfully  eager  to  be 
for  a  moment  in  our  supposedly  great  world,  that  is 
almost  too  painful  for  me.  I  can't  bear  to  think  of 
the  woman  that  was  Jim's  wife  being  the  prey  to  such 
feelings  and  the  victim  of  the  least  dignified,  for  her 
jealousy  wasn't  a  contemptible  or  silly  thing  like  her 
ignorant  snobbishness.  I  would  rather  think  that  she 
came  just  to  show  me  how  much  Jim  loved  her,  and 
to  suggest  that  we  might  be  friends  again.  I  should  like 
still  more,  to  think  that  she  really  felt  drawn  to  me  at  last 
for  myself,  and  that  her  coming  there  was  a  warm,  free 
impulse.  But  I  don't  know.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  think 
it  out.  It  is  all  too  blurred  by  the  horror  of  the  outcome. 
It  was  half-past  eleven  on  that  last  night,  the  second 
night,  when  I  began  my  search  for  him,  and  it  must  have 
taken  me  ten  minutes  to  find  him,  perhaps  fifteen.  I 
had  been  to  the  billiard-room  and  the  dining-room  and 
the  library  and  to  Binky's  study,  as  well  as  along  the 
terrace  and  out  into  the  park,  but  it  struck  me  as  ab- 
surd and  useless  to  look  for  him  out  of  doors,  and  I 
hadn't  spent  long  there,  only  long  enough  to  be  chilled 
and  to  come  in  by  the  south  door  shivering.  I  calcu- 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  339 

lated  that  he  had  been  there  alone  two  hours,  for  he 
had  left  the  drawing-room  at  a  quarter  to  ten,  only  a 
few  minutes  after  the  men  joined  us  there.  He  had 
stayed  just  long  enough  to  see  Louise  curve  her  long 
neck,  twist  her  hands  into  a  becoming  attitude,  and 
look  up  at  Britton  with  an  idiotic  smile.  It's  curious 
how  many  curves  Louise  had.  She  was  all  arches  and 
curves  from  the  top  of  her  head  to  the  instep  of  her 
foot,  and  when  she  roused  herself  to  an  effort,  these 
curves  accentuated  themselves  suddenly  all  at  once,  as 
though  worked  all  together  by  a  spring.  She  would  arch 
her  eyebrows  and  purse  her  lips  and  curl  her  fingers, 
and  do  something  funny  with  her  toes,  that  made  her 
high-heeled  little  feet  look  conspicuous.  That  night 
everything  about  her  seemed  exaggerated.  She  seemed 
bent  on  overdoing  it.  Her  dress  was  like  a  fancy  dress. 
It  had  wings  and  panniers.  It  was  a  quite  wonderful 
dress  of  a  queer  old-rose  and  gold  and  crimson,  cut 
no  lower  than  Claire's  black  velvet,  but  seeming  indecent 
because  her  shoulders  were  so  thin  and  her  breast  so 
flat.  Her  slippers  were  gold  and  there  was  a  crimson 
rose  in  her  corsage.  She  put  us  all  in  the  shade.  We 
looked  and  felt  dowdy  beside  her  gorgeousness,  just  as 
we  looked  and  felt  awkward  in  the  face  of  her  amazingly 
varied  manner,  just  as  we  were  all  struck  dumb  by 
her  shrill  volubility.  It  was  impossible  to  stop  her.  I 
did  my  best.  Even  before  Jim  and  the  men  came  in 
I  had  been  doing  my  best.  It  made  me  unhappy.  I 
blushed  for  her,  and  I  was  angry.  Clem's  little  smile 
and  Claire's  icy  detachment  and  Molly's  blank  amaze- 
ment and  Phil's  wicked  way  of  egging  her  on,  made 
me  unhappy.  I  gave  myself  up  to  her  during  our 
feminine  half -hour  over  coffee.  I  tried  to  get  her  to 


340  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

talk  entirely  to  me.  I  tried  to  talk  myself  and  drown 
her,  but  it  was  no  good.  Some  ridiculous  foreign  prince 
they  had  met  in  Paris  had  turned  her  little  head.  He 
had  asked  them  to  his  chateau  in  Normandy,  he  had 
given  them  parties  at  Arminnville,  he  had  advised  her 
about  dressmakers.  She  would  have  liked  to  follow  his 
advice  about  dresses,  but  Jim  had  limited  her  expendi- 
ture. There  was  an  evening-cloak  by  Poiret  she  had 
pined  for  and  literally  wept  for,  but  Jim  hadn't  let  her 
buy  it.  She  wasn't  exactly  peevish  about  Jim's  hard- 
heartedness,  but  she  suggested  that  it  was  very  saintly 
of  her  not  to  be.  And  she  eyed  our  uninteresting  frocks 
with  tactful,  gentle  contempt.  The  wings  of  hers  fell 
in  loose  folds  down  her  restless  back,  and  she  took  them 
on  either  side  in  her  fingers,  and  stood  poised  before 
us  looking  down  on  us  with  her  pouting,  piquant  little 
face  simply  coated  with  smug  self-satisfaction.  Perhaps 
she  was  miserable  even  then,  but  it  seemed  quite  clear 
to  us  all  at  that  time,  that  she  took  great  pleasure  in 
knowing  that  she  was  the  best-dressed  woman  in  the 
room.  Poor  Louise!  I  wonder  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
the  prince  and  the  Paris  dressmakers  whether  she  might 
not  have  been  saved  —  to  grow  up.  I  don't  know. 
After  all,  the  effect  that  Britton  and  Binky  and  Ruffles, 
and  particularly  and  fatally  that  Britton  had  on  her, 
was  quite  another  thing  from  the  affaire  of  the  prince 
and  the  dressmakers.  If  she  had  come  straight  to  us 
from  little  Lou's  deathbed,  I  expect  she  would  have 
bridled  with  the  business  of  fascination  for  Britton. 
She  had  seen  his  pictures  in  the  papers  too  many  times, 
had  heard  his  name  on  too  many  lips  ever  to  dream  of 
taking  him  as  a  human  being. 

It  doubtless  seemed  a  miracle  to  her  that  a  man  who 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  341 

had  already  made  history  to  such  an  extent,  and  who 
was  spoken  of  with  awe  even  in  America,  should  be 
bending  over  the  back  of  her  chair.  I  don't  blame 
her  for  being  thrilled  about  him.  It  was  rather  charm- 
ing of  her  to  feel  like  that,  at  least  the  youth  and 
enthusiasm  at  the  bottom  of  it  were  charming,  but  it 
was  the  dizzy  play  of  her  egoism  in  its  vain  little  effort 
to  subjugate  him,  or  at  least  to  strain  itself  up  to  an 
equally  important  height  that  she  might  be  on  a  level 
with  him,  which  was  so  pitiful. 

He  was  the  first  to  come  in  through  the  dining-room 
door,  and  she,  all  of  a  sudden,  went  into  a  marvellous 
set  of  curves,  as  I've  said,  and  tipping  her  head  back- 
ward and  to  one  side,  she  shot  a  brilliant  look  through 
her  lowered  lids  and  screamed  out: 

"  Oh,  Lord  Britton,  do  come  and  tell  me  the  rest  of 
that  story  about  South  Africa!  "  And  then  she  laughed 
nervously. 

He  obeyed,  of  course,  in  that  gloomy  way  of  his,  and 
his  face,  which  is  always  stern,  didn't  give  him  away. 
He  met  her  just  as  he  meets  all  the  horrors  of  battle- 
fields. It  was  no  more  disagreeable  than  a  machine- 
gun.  He  would  walk  across  a  bit  of  open,  raked  by 
a  Maxim,  quite  as  deliberately.  At  least  one  thinks 
of  him  like  that,  but  maybe  he  runs  —  like  any  sane 
person.  At  any  rate,  he  didn't  run  from  Louise.  He 
stood  quite  stolidly  while  she  rained  her  silly  words 
on  him.  He  bowed  now  and  then,  and  occasionally  he 
said,  "  Ah,  indeed ! "  and  occasionally,  "  No,  I  believe 
not."  And  his  eyebrows  never  quivered  from  their  per- 
fect deference,  while  she  smiled  with  all  her  little  teeth, 
and  shrilled  up  and  down  the  scale  of  her  bright  American 
voice. 


342  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

"  I'm  told  you  hate  women.  Is  it  true  ?  Don't  say 
it's  true.  Why  should  you  hate  us,  poor  us  ? "  She 
gave  little  tosses  to  her  head  to  emphasize  her  words. 

"On  the  contrary." 

"  How  nice  of  you  to  say  that."  With  a  special  stress 
on  the  nice.  "  It  must  be  so  wonderful " —  another 
crescendo  — "  to  be  a  General  and  command  an  army." 
A  sudden  drop.  "  Only  don't  you  worry  about  the  men 
that  are  killed?  I  should  worry  dreadfully."  A  long 
cadence  in  a  wailing  tone.  "  I  should  lie  awake  nights. 
Does  it  depress  you  horribly  ? " 

"  No,  I  believe  not.' 

"  I'm  so  disappointed  not  to  see  you  in  uniform." 
Voice  dropped.  "  Joan  ought  to  have  asked  you  to  put 
on  yours  just  for  us  poor  little  backwoods  Americans." 
Voice  rising  again.  "  I  would  so  like  to  see  your  medals. 
You've  got  lots,  I  know.  The  King  decorated  you  last 
year,  didn't  he?  I  remember  reading  about  it  in  the 
papers.  Do  you  know,  you're  always  in  the  papers.  In 
the  States,  I  mean.  Every  one  will  be  frightfully  jealous 
to  hear  that  I've  met  you.  I  had  no  idea  we'd  have  such 
a  chance." 

"You're  very  kind." 

"  Which  do  you  like  best,  Africa,  England  or  India  ? 
You've  never  been  to  America,  have  you?  You  should 
come.  We'd  so  love  to  have  you.  We'd  hang  all  the 
city  with  flags  if  you  came  to  Iroquois.  Wouldn't  we, 
Jim?" 

"  Of  course."  The  tone  of  Jim's  on  top  of  her  wavy 
soprano  voice  startled  me.  It  was  thick  and  brutal.  It 
was  more  like  the  bark  of  animal  rage  and  torment  than 
like  human  speech, 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  343 

"  Louise,"  I  put  in,  "  would  you  like  some  bridge  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  my  dear.  I'd  much  rather  just  talk  to  Lord 
Britton  —  if  he  isn't  too  awfully  bored."  Then  very, 
very  archly :  "  Are  you,  Lord  Britton  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary." 

"  You  go  and  play  bridge  or  billiards,  there's  a  dear. 
We're  all  right.  We'll  just  sit  and  talk.  I'll  take  care 
of  him  for  you,"  and  with  a  flourish  of  lace  and  silk 
and  wings  and  panniers,  she  settled  herself  down  in 
front  of  the  fire,  lifting  her  poor,  pretty  head  with 
its  glinting,  crinkly  hair,  tilting  it  far  back,  and  pouting 
up  at  him.  It's  incredible  that  she  shouldn't  have  realized 
what  a  spectacle  she  was  making  of  herself.  It  ex- 
posed her,  as  if  she  had  stripped  naked  and  danced  be- 
fore us. 

The  sight  of  her  exposure  was  too  much  for  Jim. 
He  turned  off  with  a  groan,  giving  me,  as  he  slunk  out 
of  the  room,  one  sight  of  his  face  all  flushed  with  shame, 
his  soft  curly  mouth  twisted  into  a  snarl,  his  eyes  black 
with  humiliation.  I  don't  know  whether  he  had  been 
drinking  much  before  that  or  not.  I  hadn't  noticed  at 
dinner.  I  had  been  too  taken  up  with  the  curious  vision 
of  them  all,  Phyllis  and  Claire  and  Pat  and  Binky,  but 
now  they  all  seemed  unimportant  except  Louise.  I 
bundled  them  off  to  the  billiard-room  as  soon  as  I 
could.  If  Phil  hadn't  been  so  obstinate  I  could  have 
done  it  sooner,  but  she  insisted  on  staying  to  watch 
Louise's  antics,  and  she  got  Binky  to  go  to  the  piano 
and  made  RufHes  dance  with  her  on  a  square  of  carpet, 
and  when  she  was  tired  of  that  she  suggested,  just,  I'm 
sure,  to  shock  Louise,  that  we  play  musical  chairs,  or 
what  she  called  "  Going  to  Jerusalem,"  and  Ruffles  wick- 


344  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

edly  backing  her  up,  and  she  got  us  all  prancing  and 
whirling  round  until  even  Claire  grew  hot  and  breath- 
less. Ruffles  broke  two  chairs,  Molly  tore  her  petti- 
coat, Pat  upset  a  lamp.  It  was  all  quite  like  Iroquois, 
and  I  romped  and  plunged  about,  sitting  in  people's  laps 
and  falling  over  the  furniture  with  my  mind  all  the 
time  horridly  fixed  on  Jim,  and  on  Louise,  who  was 
sitting  there  by  the  fire  ogling  Britton. 

It  didn't  occur  to  me  that  she  was  watching  me  to 
see  if  I  would  follow  Jim.  I  hadn't  the  faintest  idea 
of  keeping  away  from  Jim  to  please  her.  I  was  strangely 
troubled  about  him  and  I  wanted  to  go  after  him,  but 
I  felt  that  the  kindest  thing  I  could  do  for  him  was 
to  stick  by  her.  I  wasn't  afraid  of  Britton,  but  I  was 
unwilling  to  leave  her  to  the  tender  mercies  of  Phyllis, 
so  I  stayed  in  the  room,  I  stayed  until  her  laughter 
sounded  in  my  ears  like  the  voice  of  a  soul  in  torment. 
Maybe  I  imagine  that  because  of  what  I  know  now. 
At  any  rate,  I'm  sure  she  must  have  been  getting  tired 
of  keeping  it  up  and  she  must  have  been  getting  very 
nervous  about  Jim,  and  I  can  quite  believe  that  by 
eleven-thirty  she  was  slightly  hysterical.  I  heard  her 
shriek : 

"  Never  go  to  Court !  Don't  you  really  ?  Unless 
what?  Oh,  unless  your  presence  is  required.  You 
mean  unless  the  King  invites  you !  "  And  I  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  I  told  Phyllis  she  had  had  her  way  long 
enough,  and  if  the  men  didn't  get  in  a  soothing  game  of 
billiards  they'd  none  of  them  sleep.  I  tore  Britton  away 
from  Louise's  clutch.  She  relinquished  him  with  a  sigh 
and  a  dazzling  smile.  I  saw  the  four  men  out  of  the 
room  with  Phyllis  and  Claire;  and  then  I  bolted,  leaving 
Louise  to  dear  old  Molly. 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  345 

I  wish  I  had  not  gone  out  of  doors  to  look  for  Jim. 
It  was  very  cold  and  damp  outside,  and  the  wind  blew 
my  hair  about.  I  always  get  unnaturally  white  when 
I'm  cold,  and  probably  I  looked  strange  and  more  wild 
than  usual  when  she  found  me  with  him.  She  was  in 
the  room  two  minutes  after  me.  A  horrible  instinct 
must  have  been  in  her  to  bring  her  straight  to  the  spot. 

'*  Jim,"  I  had  said  in  the  door,  and  when  he  didn't 
look  up  or  answer  I  went  across  to  him.  His  breathing 
was  so  heavy  that  I  thought  he  was  asleep.  The  old 
lanterns  in  the  wall  didn't  give  much  light,  and  the  fire 
had  burned  into  a  low  bed  of  glowing  embers.  "  Jim," 
I  said  again,  leaning  over  him.  He  looked  up  at  me, 
and  I  saw  that  he  was  befuddled.  The  expression  of 
his  face  frightened  me. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  he  asked  thickly.  "  You  ought 
to  leave  me  alone." 

My  idea  was  to  get  him  to  come  back  with  me  to 
the  others  or  to  Louise,  at  least  to  the  inhabited  part 
of  the  house,  and  eventually  to  bed.  I  put  my  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

"  Jim,  dear,"  I  said.  "  Come  along.  It's  horrid 
here." 

"  Come  where  ?  " 

"  Come  back  to  the  billiard-room." 

"  I'm  too  drunk.     Leave  me  alone." 

"  No,  I  can't.  I'm  unhappy  about  you.  Come  with 
me." 

"  I'm  too  drunk.     I'm  not  unhappy.     I'm  only  drunk." 

I  tried  to  urge  him  to  get  up. 

"  Come,  dear,"  I  said  again,  then  I  heard  quick  breath- 
ing behind  me. 

"  Oh !  "  gasped  Louise.     "  Oh !  " 


346  THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN 

I  turned  and  found  her  there  in  the  door,  staring. 
She  ran  forward  and  grabbed  my  arm  and  pulled  me 
away  from  him.  Jim  got  up  quickly,  flinging  the  gun 
off  his  knees.  It  fell  with  a  thud. 

"Oh,  how  dare  you  —  how  dare  you?  I  knew.  I 
knew  where  you'd  gone.  I  knew  it." 

"  What  in  hell  are  you  doing  here  ?  "  he  muttered. 

She  paid  no  attention  to  him. 

"  I've  known  all  along,"  she  screamed  at  me.  "  You've 
done  your  best  to  spoil  my  life.  You've  always  been 
trying  to  get  him  away  from  me."  I  had  retreated  to 
the  door  after  she  flung  me  away  from  him,  and  she 
stood  now  between  me  and  him,  but  staring  at  me.  We 
made  a  triangle  —  but  she  faced  me. 

"  Louise,"  I  said,  in  what  sounded  to  myself  like  a 
whisper.  "  Be  careful.  Look  at  Jim !  " 

"  I  don't  want  to  look  at  Jim  —  I  want  to  look  at 
you.  I  want  to  know  what  you  mean  by  making  love 
to  my  husband  and  lying  to  me.  Your  face  gives  you 
away.  You're  white  as  a  ghost.  You  know  you're  a 
bad  woman.  You  —  you're  heartless,  you're  depraved. 
I  hate  you.  You've  done  nothing  but  lie  to  me  for  years 
and  years." 

"  Hold  your  tongue !  "  shouted  Jim. 

"  I  won't  hold  my  tongue.  She's  in  love  with  you 
and  you  are  with  her.  You're  lovers.  She  was  leaning 
over  you.  She  was  going  to  kiss  you.  Do  you  think  I 
can't  see?  Look  at  her  face.  I  hate  you  both.  But 
you're  not  the  only  lover  she's  had  —  don't  you  believe 
it.  She's  had " 


THE  ROMANTIC  WOMAN  347 

that  man  she  calls  Ruffles "  She  got  no  further. 

Her  fury  had  somehow  drawn  my  eyes  to  her.  I  didn't 
see  what  he  was  doing.  I  only  heard  a  sharp  noise  and 
saw  her  jerk  forward  and  fall  in  a  queer  heap.  Then 
I  heard  Jim  say,  very  stupidly,  with  the  revolver  dangling 
in  his  hand : 

"  Shut  up,  damn  you !     Shut  up !  " 

I  remember  straightening  her  head  and  her  legs.  She 
had  fallen  so  unattractively.  I  took  her  head  in  my 
lap.  She  gave  little  shudders  and  moved  her  eyes  and 
tried  to  swallow.  I  don't  know  how  soon  she  died. 

It  was  Binky  who  came,  and  he  brought  Claire  after- 
wards to  help  him.  They  carried  Louise  upstairs  between 
them.  No  one  else  saw  anything,  and  even  Phyllis  has 
kept  still  about  what  she  knows. 


THE  END. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000041  912     7 


